House of Chains (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #4) 73

Distance seemed to lose relevance to Karsa Orlong. Havok carried him effortlessly. There was no need for a saddle, and the single rein looped around the stallion’s neck was all he needed to guide the beast.

Nor did the Teblor hobble the horse for the night, instead leaving him free to graze on the vast sweeps of grass stretching out on all sides.

The northern part of the Ugarat Odhan had narrowed between the inward curl of the two major rivers-the Ugarat and the other Karsa recalled as being named either Mersin or Thalas. A spine of hills had run north-south, dividing the two rivers, their summits and slopes hard-packed by the seasonal migration of bhederin over thousands of years. Those herds were gone, though their bones remained where predators and hunters had felled them, and the land was used now as occasional pasture, sparsely populated and that only in the wet season.

In the week it took to cross those hills, Karsa saw naught but signs of shepherd camps and boundary cairns, and the only grazing creatures were antelope and a species of large deer that fed only at night, spending days bedded down in low areas thick with tall, yellow grasses. Easily flushed then run down to provide Karsa with an occasional feast.

The Mersin River was shallow, almost dried up this late in the dry season. Fording it, he had then ridden northeast, coming along the trails skirting the south flanks of the Thalas Mountains, then eastward, to the city of Lato Revae, on the very edge of the Holy Desert.

He traversed the road south of the city’s wall at night, avoiding all contact, and reached the pass that led into Raraku at dawn the following day.

A pervasive urgency was driving him on. He was unable to explain the desire in his own mind, yet did not question it. He had been gone a long time, and though he did not believe the battle in Raraku had occurred, he sensed it was imminent.

And Karsa wanted to be there. Not to kill Malazans, but to guard Leoman’s back. But there was a darker truth, he well knew. The battle would be a day of chaos, and Karsa Orlong meant to add to it. Sha’ik or no Sha’ik, there are those in her camp who deserve only death. And I shall deliver it . He did not bother conjuring a list of reasons, of insults delivered, contempt unveiled, crimes committed. He had been indifferent for long enough, indifferent to so many things. He had reined in his spirit’s greatest strengths, among them his need to make judgements, and act decisively upon them in true Teblor fashion.

I have tolerated the deceitful and the malicious for long enough. My sword shall now answer them .

The Toblakai warrior was even less interested in creating a list of names, since names invited vows, and he had had enough of vows. No, he would kill as the mood took him.

He looked forward to his homecoming.

Provided he arrived in time.

Descending the slopes leading down into the Holy Desert, he was relieved to see, far to the north and east, the red crest of fury that was the Whirlwind Wall. Only days away, now.

He smiled at that distant anger, for he understood it. Constrained-chained-for so long, the goddess would soon unleash her wrath. He sensed her hunger, as palpable as that of the twin souls within his sword. The blood of deer was too thin.

He reined in Havok at an old camp near the edge of a salt flat. The slopes behind him would provide the last forage and water for the horse until just this side of the Whirlwind Wall, so he would spend time here bundling grasses for the journey, as well as refilling the waterskins from the spring ten paces from the camp.

He built a fire using the last of the bhederin dung from the Jhag Odhan-something he did only rarely-and, following a meal, opened the pack containing the ruined T’lan Imass and dragged the remnants out for the first time.

‘You are impatient to get rid of me?’ Siballe asked in a dry, rasping voice.

He grunted, staring down at the creature. ‘We’ve travelled far, Unfound. It has been a long time since I last looked upon you.’

‘Then why do you choose to look upon me now, Karsa Orlong?’

‘I do not know. I regret it already.’

‘I have seen the sun’s light through the weave of the fabric. Preferable to darkness.’

‘Why should what you prefer interest me?’

‘Because, Karsa Orlong, we are within the same House. The House of Chains. Our master-’

‘I have no master,’ the Teblor growled.

‘As he would have it,’ Siballe replied. ‘The Crippled God does not expect you to kneel. He issues no commands to his Mortal Sword, his Knight of Chains-for that is what you are, the role for which you have been shaped from the very beginning.’

‘I am not in this House of Chains, T’lan Imass. Nor will I accept another false god.’