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He leaned his head back on the damp clay of the slope, his legs trembling.
More boots thumped overhead, then the trapdoor was lifted. The glow of lantern light descended the steps, and within it Karsa saw the nameless guard.
‘Uryd,’ he called out. ‘Do you still breathe?’
‘Come closer,’ Karsa challenged in a low voice, ‘and I will show you the extent of my recovery.’
The lowlander laughed. ‘Master Silgar saw true, it seems. It will take some effort to break your spirit, I suspect.’ The guard remained standing halfway down the steps. ‘Your Sunyd kin will be returning in a day or two.’
‘I have no kin who accept the life of slavery.’
‘That’s odd, since you clearly have, else you would have contrived to kill yourself by now.’
‘You think I am a slave because I am in chains? Come closer, then, child.’
‘ “Child,” yes. Your strange affectation persists, even while we children have you at our mercy. Well, never mind. The chains are but the beginning, Karsa Orlong. You will indeed be broken, and had you been captured by the bounty hunters high on the plateau, by the time they’d delivered you to this town you’d have had nothing left of Teblor pride, much less defiance. The Sunyd will worship you, Karsa Orlong, for killing an entire camp of bounty hunters.’
‘What is your name?’ Karsa asked.
‘Why?’
The Uryd warrior smiled in the gloom. ‘For all your words, you still fear me.’
‘Hardly.’ But Karsa heard the strain in the guard’s tone and his smile broadened. ‘Then tell me your name.’
‘Damisk. My name is Damisk. I was once a tracker in the Greydog army during the Malazan conquest.’
‘Conquest. You lost, then. Which of our spirits has broken, Damisk Greydog? When I attacked your party on the ridge, you fled. Left the ones who had hired you to their fates. You fled, as would a coward, a broken man. And this is why you are here, now. For I am chained and you are beyond my reach. You come, not to tell me things, but because you cannot help yourself. You seek the pleasure of gloating, yet you devour yourself inside, and so feel no true satisfaction. Yet we both know, you will come again. And again.’
‘I shall advise,’ Damisk said, his voice ragged, ‘my master to give you to the surviving bounty hunters, to do with you as they will. And I will watch-’
‘Of course you will, Damisk Greydog.’
The man backed up the stairs, the lantern’s light swinging wildly.
Karsa laughed.
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He leaned his head back on the damp clay of the slope, his legs trembling.
More boots thumped overhead, then the trapdoor was lifted. The glow of lantern light descended the steps, and within it Karsa saw the nameless guard.
‘Uryd,’ he called out. ‘Do you still breathe?’
‘Come closer,’ Karsa challenged in a low voice, ‘and I will show you the extent of my recovery.’
The lowlander laughed. ‘Master Silgar saw true, it seems. It will take some effort to break your spirit, I suspect.’ The guard remained standing halfway down the steps. ‘Your Sunyd kin will be returning in a day or two.’
‘I have no kin who accept the life of slavery.’
‘That’s odd, since you clearly have, else you would have contrived to kill yourself by now.’
‘You think I am a slave because I am in chains? Come closer, then, child.’
‘ “Child,” yes. Your strange affectation persists, even while we children have you at our mercy. Well, never mind. The chains are but the beginning, Karsa Orlong. You will indeed be broken, and had you been captured by the bounty hunters high on the plateau, by the time they’d delivered you to this town you’d have had nothing left of Teblor pride, much less defiance. The Sunyd will worship you, Karsa Orlong, for killing an entire camp of bounty hunters.’
‘What is your name?’ Karsa asked.
‘Why?’
The Uryd warrior smiled in the gloom. ‘For all your words, you still fear me.’
‘Hardly.’ But Karsa heard the strain in the guard’s tone and his smile broadened. ‘Then tell me your name.’
‘Damisk. My name is Damisk. I was once a tracker in the Greydog army during the Malazan conquest.’
‘Conquest. You lost, then. Which of our spirits has broken, Damisk Greydog? When I attacked your party on the ridge, you fled. Left the ones who had hired you to their fates. You fled, as would a coward, a broken man. And this is why you are here, now. For I am chained and you are beyond my reach. You come, not to tell me things, but because you cannot help yourself. You seek the pleasure of gloating, yet you devour yourself inside, and so feel no true satisfaction. Yet we both know, you will come again. And again.’
‘I shall advise,’ Damisk said, his voice ragged, ‘my master to give you to the surviving bounty hunters, to do with you as they will. And I will watch-’
‘Of course you will, Damisk Greydog.’
The man backed up the stairs, the lantern’s light swinging wildly.
Karsa laughed.
A mornent later the trapdoor slammed down once more, and there was darkness.
The Teblor warrior fell silent, then planted his feet on the log yet again.
A weak voice from the far end of the trench stopped him. ‘Giant.’
The tongue was Sunyd, the voice a child’s. ‘I have no words for you, lowlander,’ Karsa growled.
‘I do not ask for words. I can feel you working on this Hood-damned tree. Will you succeed at whatever it is you are doing?’
‘I am doing nothing.’
‘All right, then. Must be my imagination. We’re dying here, the rest of us. In a most terrible, undignified manner.’
‘You must have done great wrong-’
The answering laugh was a rasping cough. ‘Oh indeed, giant. Indeed. We’re the ones who would not accept Malazan rule, so we held on to our weapons and hid in the hills and forests. Raiding, ambushing, making nuisances of ourselves. It was great fun. Until the bastards caught us.’
‘Careless.’
‘Three of you and a handful of your damned dogs, raiding an entire town! And you call me careless? Well, I suppose we both were, since we’re here.’
Karsa grimaced at the truth of that. ‘What is it you want, lowlander?’
‘Your strength, giant. There are four of us over here who are still alive, though I alone am still conscious… and very nearly sane. Sane enough, that is, to comprehend the fullest ignobility of my fate.’
‘You talk too much.’
‘For not much longer, I assure you. Can you lift this log, giant? Or spin it over a few times?’
Karsa was silent for a long moment. ‘What would that achieve?’
‘It would shorten the chains.’
‘I have no wish to shorten the chains.’
‘Temporarily.’
‘Why?’
‘Spin the damned thing, giant. So our chains wrap around it again and again. So, with one last turn, you drag us poor fools at this end under. So we drown.’
