A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

above him, too random to indicate a set passage of time. Karsa worked unceasingly, listening to the coughs and moans of the lowlanders chained further down the trunk. He could not imagine what those sad children had done, to warrant such punishment from their kin. Banishment was the harshest sentence the Teblor inflicted on those among the tribe whose actions had, with deliberate intent, endangered the survival of the village, actions that ranged from carelessness to kin-murder. Banishment led, usually, to death, but that came of starvation of the spirit within the one punished. Torture was not a Teblor way, nor was prolonged imprisonment.
    Of course, he reconsidered, it may be that these lowlanders were sick because their spirits were dying. Among the legends, there were fragments whispering that the Teblor had once owned slaves – the word, the concept, was known to him. Possession of another's life, to do with as one wished. A slave's spirit could do naught but starve.
    Karsa had no intention of starving. Urugal's shadow protected his spirit.
    He tucked the arrow-head into his belt. Setting his back against the slope, he planted his feet against the log, one to either side of the fitting, then slowly extended his legs. The chain tautened. On the underside of the trunk, the flange was pulled into the wood with a steady splintering, grinding sound.
    The shackles dug into his hide-wrapped ankles.
    He began to push harder. There was a solid crunch, then the flange would go no further. Karsa slowly relaxed. A kick
sent the bar thumping free on the other end. He rested for a few moments, then resumed the process once more.
    After a dozen tries he had managed to pull the bar up the span of three fingers from where it had been at the beginning. The flange's edges were bent now, battered by their assault on the wood. His leggings had been cut through and blood gleamed on the shackles.
    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 moment 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