A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

centre log ran along the narrow, flat bottom, half-submerged in blood-streaked sewage. Karsa was taken to the far end, out of the reach of any of the other slaves, and shackles were fixed to both wrists and both ankles – whereas, he saw, among everyone else a single shackle sufficed.
    They left him alone then.
    Flies swarmed him, alighting on his chilled skin. He lay on his side against one of the sloping sides. The wound within which the arrow-head remained was threatening to close, and this he could not allow. He shut his eyes and began to concentrate until he could feel each muscle, cut and torn and seeping, holding fast around the iron point. Then he began working them, the slightest of contractions to test the position of the arrow-head – fighting the pulses of pain that radiated out with each flex. After a few moments, he ceased, let his body relax, taking deep breaths until he was recovered from his efforts. The flanged iron blade lay almost flat against his shoulder blade. Its tip had scoured a groove along the bone. There were barbs as well, bent and twisted.
    To leave such an object within his flesh would make his left arm useless. He needed to drive it out.
    He began to concentrate once more. Ravaged muscles and tissue, a path inward of chopped and sliced flesh.
    A layer of sweat sheathed him as he continued to focus his mind, preparing, his breaths slowing, steadying.
    He contracted his muscles. A ragged scream forced its way out. Another welter of blood, amidst relentless pain. The muscles spasmed in a rippling wave. Something struck the clay slope and slid down into the sewage.
    Gasping, trembling, Karsa lay motionless for a long while. The blood streaming down from his back slowed, then ceased.
    'Lead me, Warleader'.'
    Bairoth Gild had made those words a curse, in a manner and from a place of thought that Karsa did not understand. And then, Bairoth Gild had died senselessly. Nothing the lowlanders could do threatened the Uryd, for the Uryd were not as the Sunyd. Bairoth had surrendered his chance for vengeance, a gesture so baffling to Karsa that he was left stunned.
    A brutal, knowing glare in Bairoth's eyes, fixed solely on
Karsa, even as the sword flashed towards his neck. He would tell the lowlanders nothing, yet it was a defiance without meaning – but no, there was meaning ... for Bairoth chose to abandon me.
    A sudden shiver took him. Urugal, have my brothers betrayed me? Delum Thord's flight, Bairoth Gild's death –am I to know abandonment again and again? What of the Uryd awaiting my return? Will they not follow when I proclaim war against the lowlanders?
    Perhaps not at first. No, he realized, there would be arguments, and opinions, and, seated around the camp hearths, the elders would poke smouldering sticks into the fire and shake their heads.
    Until word came that the lowlander armies were coming.
    And then they will have no choice. Would we flee into the laps of the Phalyd? No. There will be no choice but to fight, and I, Karsa Orlong, will be looked upon then, to lead the Uryd.
    The thought calmed him.
    He slowly rolled over, blinking in the gloom, flies scattering all around his face.
    It took a few moments of groping in the sludge to find the arrow-head and its stubby, splintered fragment of shaft. He then crouched down beside the centre log to examine the fittings holding the chains.
    There were two sets of chains, one for his arms and one for his legs, each fixed to a long iron rod that had been driven through the trunk, the opposite end flattened out. The links were large and solid, forged with Teblor strength in mind. But the wood on the underside had begun to rot.
    Using the arrow-head, he began gouging and digging into the sewage-softened wood around the flange.
    Bairoth had betrayed him, betrayed the Uryd. There had been nothing of courage in his last act of defiance. Indeed, the very opposite. They had discovered enemies to the Teblor. Hunters, who collected Teblor trophies. These were truths that the warriors of all the tribes needed to hear, and delivering those truths was now Karsa's sole task.
    He was not Sunyd, as the lowlanders were about to discover.
    The rot had been drawn up the hole. Karsa dug out the soaked, pulpy mass as far as the arrow-head could reach. He then moved on to the second fitting. The iron bar holding his leg chains would be tested first.
    There was no way to tell if it was day or night outside. Heavy boots occasionally crossed the plank floor