House of Chains Page 9

  Bairoth Gild strode into view. ‘The second guard escaped up the trail, Warleader,’ he said. ‘The dogs now hunt.’

  Karsa grunted.

  ‘Karsa Orlong, you have slain the first group of children. The trophies are yours.’

  Reaching down, Karsa closed the fingers of one hand in the robes of one of the bodies at his feet. He straightened, lifting the corpse into the air, and studied its puny limbs, its small head with its peculiar braids. A face lined, as would be a Teblor’s after centuries upon centuries of life, yet the visage he stared down upon was scaled to that of a Teblor newborn.

  ‘They squealed like babes,’ Bairoth Gild said. ‘The tales are true, then. These lowlanders are like children indeed.’

  ‘Yet not,’ Karsa said, studying the aged face now slack in death.

  ‘They died easily.’

  ‘Aye, they did.’ Karsa flung the body away. ‘Bairoth Gild, these are our enemies. Do you follow your warleader?’

  ‘For this war, I shall,’ Bairoth replied. ‘Karsa Orlong, we shall speak no more of our . . . village. What lies between us must await our eventual return.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Two of the pack’s dogs did not return, and there was nothing of strutting victory in the gaits of Gnaw and the others as they padded back into the camp at dawn. Surprisingly, the lone guard had somehow escaped. Delum Thord, his arms wrapped about Gnaw’s mate—as they had been throughout the night—whimpered upon the pack’s return.

  Bairoth shifted the supplies from his and Karsa’s destriers to Delum’s warhorse, for it was clear that Delum had lost all knowledge of riding. He would run with the dogs.

  As they readied to depart, Bairoth said, ‘It may be that the guard came from Silver Lake. That he will bring to them warning words of our approach.’

  ‘We shall find him,’ Karsa growled from where he crouched, threading the last of his trophies onto the leather cord. ‘He could only have eluded the dogs by climbing, so there will be no swiftness to his flight. We shall seek sign of him. If he has continued on through the night, he will be tired. If not, he will be close.’ Straightening, Karsa held the string of severed ears and tongues out before him, studied the small, mangled objects for a moment longer, then looped his collection of trophies round his neck.

  He swung himself onto Havok’s back, collected the lone rein.

  Gnaw’s pack moved ahead to scout the trail, Delum among them, the three-legged dog cradled in his arms.

  They set off.

  Shortly before midday, they came upon signs of the last lowlander, thirty paces beyond the corpses of the two missing dogs—a crossbow quarrel buried in each one. A scattering of iron armour, straps and fittings. The guard had shed weight.

  ‘This child is a clever one,’ Bairoth Gild observed. ‘He will hear us before we see him, and will prepare an ambush.’ The warrior’s hooded gaze flicked to Delum. ‘More dogs will be slain.’

  Karsa shook his head at Bairoth’s words. ‘He will not ambush us, for that will see him killed, and he knows it. Should we catch up with him, he will seek to hide. Evasion is his only hope, up the cliffside, and then we will have passed him, and so he will not succeed in reaching Silver Lake before us.’

  ‘We do not hunt him down?’ Bairoth asked in surprise.

  ‘No. We ride for Bone Pass.’

  ‘Then he shall trail us. Warleader, an enemy loose at our backs—’

  ‘A child. Those quarrels might well kill a dog, but they are as twigs to us Teblor. Our armour alone will take much of those small barbs—’

  ‘He has a sharp eye, Karsa Orlong, to slay two dogs in the dark. He will aim for where our armour does not cover us.’

  Karsa shrugged. ‘Then we must outpace him beyond the pass.’

  They continued on. The trail widened as it climbed, the entire escarpment pushing upward in its northward reach. Riding at a fast trot, they covered league after league until, by late afternoon, they found themselves entering clouds of mist, a deep roaring sound directly ahead.

  The path dropped away suddenly.

  Reining in amidst the milling dogs, Karsa dismounted.

  The edge was sheer. Beyond it and on his left, a river had cut a notch a thousand paces or more deep into the cliffside, down to what must have been a ledge of some sort, over which it then plunged another thousand paces to a mist-shrouded valley floor. A dozen or more thread-thin waterfalls drifted out from both sides of the notch, issuing from fissures in the bedrock. The scene, Karsa realized after a moment, was all wrong. They had reached the highest part of the escarpment’s ridge. A river, cutting a natural route through to the lowlands, did not belong in this place. Stranger still, the flanking waterfalls poured out from riven cracks, not one level with another, as if the mountains on both sides were filled with water.

  ‘Karsa Orlong,’ Bairoth had to shout to be heard over the roar rising from far below, ‘someone—an ancient god, perhaps—has broken a mountain in half. That notch, it was not carved by water. No, it has the look of having been cut by a giant axe. And the wound . . . bleeds.’

  Not replying to Bairoth’s words, Karsa turned about. Directly on his right, a winding, rocky path descended on their side of the cliff, a steep path of shale and scree, gleaming wet.

  ‘This is our way down?’ Bairoth stepped past Karsa, then swung an incredulous look upon the warleader. ‘We cannot! It will vanish beneath our feet! Beneath the hoofs of the horses! We shall descend indeed, like stones down a cliff side!’

  Karsa crouched and pried a rock loose from the ground. He tossed it down the trail. Where it first struck, the shale shifted, trembled, then slid in a growing wave that quickly followed the bouncing rock, vanishing into the mists.

  Revealing rough, broad steps.

  Made entirely of bones.

  ‘It is as Pahlk said, ‘Karsa murmured, before turning to Bairoth. ‘Come, our path awaits.’

  Bairoth’s eyes were hooded. ‘It does indeed, Karsa Orlong. Beneath our feet there shall be a truth.’

  Karsa scowled. ‘This is our trail down from the mountains. Nothing more, Bairoth Gild.’

  The warrior shrugged. ‘As you say, Warleader.’

  Karsa in the lead, they began the descent.

  The bones were lowlander in scale, yet heavier and thicker, hardened into stone. Here and there, antlers and tusks were visible, as well as artfully carved bone helms from larger beasts. An army had been slain, their bones then laid out, intricately fashioned into these grim steps. The mists had quickly laid down a layer of water, but each step was solid, broad and slightly angled back, the pitch reducing the risk of slipping. The Teblor’s pace was slowed only by the cautious descent of the destriers.

  It seemed that the rockslide Karsa had triggered had cleared the way as far down as the massive shelf of stone where the river gathered before plunging over to the valley below. With the roaring tumble of water growing ever closer on their left and jagged, raw rock on their right, the warriors descended more than a thousand paces, and with each step the gloom deepened around them.

  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 a
re 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 switch-backing 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 f
lung 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 children.’ 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.