A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

was barely a third of a day ahead. They had slowed their pace, sending outriders to either side in search of a trail that did not yet exist. Karsa would not permit himself a gloat concerning that, however; there were, after all, two other parties from the Rathyd village, these ones probably on foot and moving cautiously, leaving few signs of their stealthy passage. At any time, they might cross the Uryd trail.
    The pack of dogs remained close on the upwind side, loping effortlessly alongside the trotting horses. Bairoth had simply shaken his head at hearing Delum's recount of
Karsa's exploits, though of Karsa's ambitions, Delum curiously said nothing.
    They reached the valley floor, a place of tumbled stone amidst birch, black spruce, aspen and alder. The remnants of a river seeped through the moss and rotting stumps, forming black pools that hinted nothing of their depth. Many of these sinkholes were hidden among boulders and treefalls. Their pace slowed as they cautiously worked their way deeper into the forest.
    A short while later they came to the first of the mud-packed, wooden walkways the Rathyd of this valley had built long ago and still maintained, if only indifferently. Lush grasses filling the joins attested to this particular one's disuse, but its direction suited the Uryd warriors, and so they dismounted and led their horses up onto the raised track.
    It creaked and swayed beneath the combined weight of horses, Teblor and dogs.
    'We'd best spread out and stay on foot,' Bairoth said.
    Karsa crouched and studied the roughly dressed logs. 'The wood is still sound,' he observed.
    'But the stilts are seated in mud, Warleader.'
    'Not mud, Bairoth Gild. Peat.'
    'Karsa Orlong is right,' Delum said, swinging himself back onto his destrier. 'The way may pitch but the cross-struts underneath will keep it from twisting. We ride down the centre, in single file.'
    'There is little point,' Karsa said to Bairoth, 'in taking this path if we then creep along it like snails.'
    'The risk, Warleader, is that we become far more visible.'
    'Best we move along it quickly, then.'
    Bairoth grimaced. 'As you say, Karsa Orlong.'
    Delum in the lead, they rode at a slow canter down the centre of the walkway. The pack followed. To either side, the only trees that reached to the eye level of the mounted warriors were dead birch, their leafless, black branches wrapped in the web of caterpillar nests. The living trees –
aspen and alder and elm – reached no higher than chest height with their fluttering canopy of dusty-green leaves. Taller black spruce was visible in the distance. Most of these looked to be dead or dying.
    'The old river is returning,' Delum commented. 'This forest slowly drowns.'
    Karsa grunted, then said, 'This valley runs into others that all lead northward, all the way to the Buryd Fissure. Pahlk was among the Teblor elders who gathered there sixty years ago. The river of ice filling the Fissure had died, suddenly, and had begun to melt.'
    Behind Karsa, Bairoth spoke. 'We never learned what the elders of all the tribes discovered up there, nor if they had found whatever it was they were seeking.'
    'I did not know they were seeking anything in particular,' Delum muttered. 'The death of the ice river was heard in a hundred valleys, including our own. Did they not travel to the Fissure simply to discover what had happened?'
    Karsa shrugged. 'Pahlk told me of countless beasts that had been frozen within the ice for numberless centuries, becoming visible amidst the shattered blocks. Fur and flesh thawing, the ground and sky alive with crows and mountain vultures. There was ivory, but most of it was too badly crushed to be of any worth. The river had a black heart, or so its death revealed, but whatever lay within that heart was either gone or destroyed. Even so, there were signs of an ancient battle in that place. The bones of children. Weapons of stone, all broken.'
    'This is more than I have ever—' Bairoth began, then stopped.
    The walkway, which had been reverberating to their passage, had suddenly acquired a deeper, syncopating thunder. The walkway ahead made a bend, forty paces distant, to the left, disappearing behind trees.
    The pack of dogs began snapping their jaws in voiceless warning. Karsa twisted round, and saw, two hundred paces behind them on the walkway, a dozen
Rathyd warriors on foot. Weapons were lifted in silent promise.
    Yet the sound of hoofs – Karsa swung forward again, to see six riders