‘But I want to kill the mixed-blood!’
‘Maybe you’ll get a chance at that—’
‘No! I want to kill him right away! It’s important!’
‘Fine! You can lead a counter-attack once we’re up there, all right?’
Gillimada smiled broadly, her teeth even and white as snow. ‘And we will cut down every tree we see!’
He glared at her back as she loped ahead. His heart felt ready to burst and he wondered if it might, the moment he stepped up to fight – a sudden clenching in his chest, or whatever happened when the thing seized up. He was certain that it’d hurt. Probably a lot.
Glancing upslope to his left, he saw rising dust, and there – the flash of spears or perhaps pikes, or even swords. Ahead, the Teblor raised a shout – and Spax squinted to see bodies sliding down the slope, limbs flailing, weapons skirling away.
‘Go past! Go past!’
His warriors were pressing up behind him. Spax snarled. ‘Go round me then, damn you all! I’ll catch up!’ They poured past on either side in a clatter of armour and drawn weapons.
My beloved fools, all of you
.
Forty more heaving paces, another ten, five, and then, looking up, he saw his Barghast scrambling in the wake of the Teblor, up the valley side, many of them using their hands where they could. And above them the Perish falling back, spinning away from blows, tumbling and skidding down into the midst of the climbing warriors.
Gods curse us all!
‘Climb! Get up there!’
He saw the Teblor reach the summit, saw them plunge forward and out of sight, weapons swinging. And then, behind them, the first of the Gilk, armour grey with dust, their white faces running with stained sweat.
Spax reached the base, clambered upward. His legs were half numb under him. Blisters roared with pain on his ankles, his heels. He coughed out dust, was almost knocked over by a descending corpse – a Perish, most of his face cut away – and struggled yet higher.
Is there no end to this damned hillside?
And then a hand reached down, took hold of his wrist, and Spax was dragged on to level ground.
They were in the midst of farm buildings, and the Kolansii were on all sides, sweeping down from the road, driving the buckling clumps of Perish back towards the valley edge.
His first sight of this told him that the Grey Helms had been flanked, and though they fought on, with a ferocity worthy of their gods, they
were dying by the score. His Gilk had slammed into this press, but even as they did so more Kolansii surged forward, fully encircling the defenders – with the valley side the only possible retreat.
Dark fury raged in Spax as he staggered forward, readying his weapons.
We failed, Firehair. May all the swamp gods rot in Hood’s own bog! We should have set out earlier – we should have marched with the Perish!
The Teblor had formed a solid square and were pushing through the enemy, but even they were not enough.
On the road, Spax could see massive elements of the Kolansii army simply driving forward, eastward, ignoring the vicious last stand on their right.
We didn’t even slow them down
.
‘Withdraw! Barghast! Perish! Teblor! Withdraw – down the hillside! Back down the hillside!’
Seeing warrior and soldier stumbling back, seeing them twist and pour down from the summit, the Warchief’s heart felt cold, buried in ashes.
Gesler, ’ware your flank. We couldn’t hold them. We just couldn’t
.
The press of retreating warriors, bloodied and desperate, gathered him up and they all slid ragged paths back down the slope. He was pulled along unresisting.
All this way – for this? We could have done more
. But he knew that any stand would have been doomed – there were just too many Kolansii, and they fought with demonic valour.
He had lost both his weapons on the descent, and his soul howled at the appropriateness of that. Tilting his head back, he stared up at the sun.
It was barely noon.
In the depths of night rain was pouring down in Darujhistan. Karsa Orlong had walked into the city, and now he stood, water streaming from him, waiting. Opposite him was the temple, and the vow that he had made so long ago now, in the savage intensity of youth, was a heat in his flesh, so fierce that he thought he could see steam rising from his limbs
.
Almost time
.
He’d seen no one else in the street since dusk, and during the day, while he had stood in place, the people of this city had swept past, unwilling to fix eyes upon him for very long. A troop of city guards had lingered for a time, nervous, half circling his position where he had stood, his huge stone sword resting point down, his hands wrapped about its leather-bound grip. Then they had simply moved on
.
He would have been irritated at having to kill them, and no doubt there would have been alarms, and yet more guards, and more killing
.
But, rather than being heaped with the dead, the cobbled width of the street before him remained unobstructed
.
Eyes half closed, he experienced again the echo of the life he had watched seething back and forth in the day now gone. He wondered at all those lives, the way few would meet the gazes of their fellows, as if crowds demanded wilful anonymity, when the truth was they were all in it together – all these people, facing much the same struggles, the same fears. And yet, it seemed, each one was determined to survive them alone, or with but a few kin and friends offering paltry allegiance. Perhaps they each believed themselves unique, like a knot-stone in the centre of the world’s mill wheel, but the truth was there were very few who could truly make claim to such a pivotal existence
.
After all, there was only one Karsa Orlong. Standing here across from a modest temple with stained walls and faded friezes, standing here with the fate of the world in his hands
.
He had known a time in chains. He had lived in that wretched house, his hands closed into fists against the slavery in which so many insisted he reside – meek, uncomplaining, accepting of his fate. He thought back to the citizens he’d seen here. So many had been dragging chains. So many had walked bowed and twisted by their weight. So many had with their own hands hammered tight the shackles, believing that this was how it was supposed to be. Sweating at another person’s behest, the muscles and will given away and now owned by someone claiming to be their better in all things. Year after year, a lifetime of enslavement
.
This was the conversation of the civilized, and it repulsed Karsa Orlong to the very core of his being
.
Who was the slavemaster? Nothing but a host of cruel ideas. Nothing but a deceitful argument. A sleight of hand deception between things of value, where one wins and the other always loses. He had heard bartering, had witnessed bargains made, and it all had the illusion of fairness, and it all played out as if it was a ritual deemed necessary, made iron like a natural law
.
But where was the joy in that ceaseless struggle? Where was the proper indolence of the predator, and just how many fangs needed pulling to make this precious civilization?
Of course, not everyone suffered the same emasculation, and this was where all the lies finally gathered. The hungriest maws, fangs dripping, hid in the cool upper rooms of the estates, in the fountained gardens of the rich – and these ones, oh, they indulged all the indolence they desired. While the crowds of their lessers looked on, wide-eyed and ever eager for details
.
A broken and suffering god in chains had haunted him. It had flung weapons in his path. It had whispered all manner of enticements. It
had, in all its desperate pain, rushed down a thousand tracks, only to find not a moment of blessed relief
.
Karsa now understood that god. The times that he had been chained, he had felt that terrible panic, that animal frenzy to escape. No mortal, human or Toblakai, should ever feel such feelings. Nor, he knew now, should a god
.
‘
He cannot know compassion, from whom compassion has been taken. He cannot know love, with love denied him. But he will know pain, when pain is all that is given him
.’
Compassion. Love. It was not civilization that birthed these gentle gifts – though its followers might claim otherwise. Nor was civilization the sweetest garden for such things to blossom in – though those trapped within it might imagine it so. No, as far as he could see, civilization was a madman’s mechanism that, for all its good intentions, ended up ensnaring the gentle gifts, stifling them, leaving them to wander mazes only to die alone and in the dark
.
A mechanism, a cagework, and in its chaos the slaves bred like flies – until the world itself groaned under the assault of their appetites
.
‘
You have made many vows, Karsa Orlong
.’
A civilization was the means by which too many people could live together despite their mutual hatred. And those moments where love and community burgeoned forth, the cynics descended like vultures eager to feed, and the skies soured, and the moment died away
.
‘
Upon my heart, Karsa Orlong. Do you hear me? Upon my heart!
’
Blinking, Karsa looked down to see a crippled man drawn up against his feet. The rain streamed around him, gushed and swirled, and the face that had twisted up to look at him seemed to be shedding from blinded eyes the tears of the world
.
‘
Is it time then?
’
Karsa demanded
.
‘
Will you kill it all?
’
The Toblakai showed his teeth
. ‘
If I can
.’
‘
It will simply grow up again, like a weed from the ashes. For all that we are made to kneel, Karsa Orlong, we yearn to fly
.’
‘
Yes, rare and noble and precious as pigeons. I’ve seen the statues of old heroes in the square, old man. I’ve seen their crowns of bird-shit
.’
‘
I – I was an artist once. These hands – so deformed now, so bent and frozen – can you understand? All this talent, but no way to release it, no way to give it shape. But perhaps we are all like that, and only the lucky few are able to find talent’s path unbarred
.’
‘
I doubt it
,’
Karsa replied
.
Thunder rumbled from beyond the lake
.
The crippled man coughed
. ‘
I am drowning. I have enjoyed our conversation on the merits of the civilized, Karsa Orlong, but now
I must surrender. I must die. Sick. Fevered. The needs burn too hot. I have given you the words you shall use. Upon my heart. Upon my heart
.’
Karsa stared at the wretched shape at his feet. He set his sword to lean against the wall behind him, and then crouched down
.
The crippled man’s face lifted, the sightless eyes white as polished coins
. ‘
What are you doing?
’
Karsa reached down, gathered the skeletal figure into his arms, and then settled back
. ‘
I stepped over corpses on the way here
,’
the Toblakai said
. ‘
People no one cared about, dying alone. In my barbaric village this would never happen, but here in this city, this civilized jewel, it happens all the time
.’
The ravaged face was turned upward, the last of the raindrops dripping away as he huddled beneath the cover Karsa provided. The mouth worked, but no sounds came forth
.
‘
What is your name?
’
Karsa asked
.
‘
Munug
.’
‘
Munug. This night – before I must rise and walk into the temple – I am a village. And you are here, in my arms. You will not die uncared for
.’
‘
You – you would do this for me? A stranger?
’
‘
In my village no one is a stranger – and this is what civilization has turned its back on. One day, Munug, I will make a world of villages, and the age of cities will be over. And slavery will be dead, and there shall be no chains – tell your god. Tonight, I am his knight
.’
Munug’s shivering was fading. The old man smiled
. ‘
He knows
.’
It wasn’t too much, to take a frail figure into one’s arms for those last moments of life. Better than a cot, or even a bed in a room filled with loved ones. Better, too, than an empty street in the cold rain. To die in someone’s arms – could there be anything more forgiving?
Every savage barbarian in the world knew the truth of this
.
Behind their massive shields the Ve’Gath soldiers of the K’Chain Che’Malle advanced into a hailstorm of arrows and heavy quarrels. Impacts staggered some of them, quarrels shattering against the shields. Others reeled, heads, necks and chests sprouting shafts, and as they fell their kin moved up to take their places, and the reptilian assault drew ever closer to the trenches and redoubts.