A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

against a wall. The reed panel fell inward, Karsa plunging through. There was a grunt from a cot to his left, a vague shape bolting into a sitting position. Iron bar swung down. Blood and bits of bone sprayed the walls. The figure sank back down.
    The small, lone room of the shack was cluttered with Sunyd objects, most of them useless: charms, belts and trinkets. He did find, however, a pair of Sunyd hunting knives, sheathed in beaded buckskin over wood. A low altar caught Karsa's attention. Some lowlander god, signified by a small clay statue – a boar, standing on its hind legs.
    The Teblor knocked it to the earthen floor, then
shattered it with a single stomp of his heel.
    Returning outside, he approached the next inhabited shack.
    The wind howled off the lake, white-maned waves crashing up the pebbled beach. The sky overhead was still black with clouds, the rain unceasing.
    There were seven shacks in all, and in the sixth one – after killing the two men entwined together in the cot beneath the skin of a grey bear – he found an old Sunyd bloodsword, and an almost complete set of armour that, although of a style Karsa had never seen before, was clearly Teblor in origin, given its size and the sigils burned into the wooden plates. It was only when he began strapping it on that he realized that the grey, weathered wood was blood-wood – bleached by centuries of neglect.
    In the seventh hut he found a small jar of blood-oil, and took the time to remove the armour and rub the pungent salve into its starved wood. He used the last of it to ease the sword's own thirst.
    He then kissed the gleaming blade, tasting the bitter oil.
    The effect was instantaneous. His heart began pounding, fire ripping through his muscles, lust and rage filling his mind.
    He found himself back outside, staring at the town before him through a red haze. The air was foul with the stench of lowlanders. He moved forward, though he could no longer feel his legs, his gaze fixing on the bronze-banded door of a large, timbered house.
    Then it was flying inward, and Karsa was entering the low-ceilinged hallway beyond the threshold. Someone was shouting upstairs.
    He found himself on the landing, face to face with a broad-shouldered, bald child. Behind him cowered a woman with grey-streaked hair, and behind her – now fleeing – a half-dozen servants.
    The bald child had just taken down from the wall a longsword still in its jewel-studded scabbard. His eyes
glittered with terror, his expression of disbelief remaining frozen on his features even as his head leapt from his shoulders.
    And then Karsa found himself in the last room upstairs, ducking to keep his head beneath the ceiling as he stepped over the last of the servants, the house silent behind him. Before him, hiding behind a poster bed, a young female lowlander.
    The Teblor dropped his sword. A moment later he held her before him, her feet kicking at his knees. He cupped the back of her head in his right hand, pushed her face against his armour's oil-smeared breastplate.
    She struggled, then her head snapped back, eyes suddenly wild.
    Karsa laughed, throwing her down on the bed.
    Animal sounds came from her mouth, her long-fingered hands snatching up at him as he moved over her.
    The female clawed at him, her back arching in desperate need.
    She was unconscious before he was done, and when he drew away there was blood between them. She would live, he knew. Blood-oil was impatient with broken flesh.
    He was outside in the rain once more, sword in his hands. The clouds were lightening to the east.
    Karsa moved on to the next house.
    Awareness drifted away then, for a time, and when it returned he found himself in an attic with a window at the far end through which streamed bright sunlight. He was on his hands and knees, sheathed in blood, and to one side lay a child's body, fat and in slashed robes, eyes staring sightlessly.
    Waves of shivering racked him, his breath harsh gasps that echoed dully in the close, dusty attic. He heard shouts from somewhere outside and crawled over to the round, thick-glassed window at the far end.
    Below was the main street, and he realized that he was near the west gate. Glass-distorted figures on restless horses
were gathering – Malazan soldiers. As he watched, and to his astonishment, they suddenly set forth for the gate. The thundering of horse hoofs quickly diminished as the party rode westward.
    The warrior slowly sat back. There was no sound from