A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

all civil trappings, a thing of muscle and will and hidden
pressures. While, in strange contrast, the Anibar,
Boatfinder, seemed an interloper, almost a parasite, his
every motion furtive and oddly guilt-laden. From this
broken, rock-skinned place of trees and clearwater lakes,
Boatfinder and his people took black grain and the skins of
animals; they took birch bark and reeds for making baskets
and nets. Not enough to scar this landscape, not enough to
claim conquest.
    As for her, she found herself viewing her surroundings in
terms of trees left unharvested, of lakes still rich with fish,
of more efficient ways to gather the elongated, mudcoloured
grains from the reed beds in the shallows – the
so-called black grain that needed to be beaten free of
the stalks, gathered in the hollow of the long, narrowboats
the Anibar used, beaten down with sticks amidst
webs and spinning spiders and the buzz of tiger-flies. She
could think only of resources and the best means of exploiting
them. It felt less and less like a virtue with every passing
day.
    They continued along the trail, Boatfinder in the lead,
followed by Karsa who led his horse by the reins, leaving
Samar Dev with a view of the animal's rump and swishing
tail. Her feet hurt, each step on the hard stone reverberating
up into her spine – there had to be a way of padding such
impacts, she told herself, perhaps some kind of multilayering
technology for boot soles – she would have to
think on that. And these biting flies – Boatfinder had cut
juniper branches, threading them through a headscarf so
that the green stems dangled in front of his forehead and
down the back of his neck. Presumably this worked,
although the man looked ridiculous. She contemplated
surrendering her vanity and following suit, but would hold
out a while longer.
    Karsa Orlong was undertaking this journey now as if it
had become some kind of quest. Driven by the need to
deliver judgement, upon whomsoever he chose, no matter
what the circumstances. She had begun to understand just
how frightening this savage could be, and how it fed her
own growing fascination with him. She half-believed this
man could cut a swath through an entire pantheon of gods.
    A dip in the trail brought them onto mossy ground,
through which broken branches thrust up jagged grey
fingers. To the right was a thick, twisted scrub oak,
centuries old and scarred by lightning strikes; all the lesser
trees that had begun growth around it were dead, as if the
battered sentinel exuded some belligerent poison. To the
left was the earthen wall of a toppled pine tree's root-mat,
vertical and as tall as Karsa, rising from a pool of black
water.
    Havok came to an abrupt halt and Samar Dev heard a
grunt from Karsa Orlong. She worked her way round the
Jhag horse until she could clearly see that wall of twisted
roots. In which was snared a withered corpse, the flesh
wrinkled and blackened, limbs stretched out, neck exposed
but of the head only the lower jaw line visible. The chest
area seemed to have imploded, the hollow space reaching
up into the heart of the huge tree itself. Boatfinder stood
opposite, his left hand inscribing gestures in the air.
    'This toppled but recently,' Karsa Orlong said. 'Yet this
body, it has been there a long time, see how the black water
that once gathered about the roots has stained its skin.
Samar Dev,' he said, facing her, 'there is a hole in its chest
– how did such a thing come to be?'
    She shook her head. 'I cannot even determine what
manner of creature this is.'
    'Jaghut,' the Toblakai replied. 'I have seen the like
before. Flesh becomes wood, yet the spirit remains alive
within—'
    'You're saying this thing is still alive?'
    'I do not know – the tree has fallen over, after all, and so
it is dying—'
    'Death is not sure,' Boatfinder cut in, his eyes wide with
superstitious terror. 'Often, the tree reaches once more skyward.
But this dweller, so terribly imprisoned, it cannot be
alive. It has no heart. It has no head.'
    Samar Dev stepped closer to examine the body's sunken
chest. After a time she backed away, made uneasy by something
she could not define. 'The bones beneath the flesh
continued growing,' she said, 'but not as bone. Wood. The
sorcery belongs to D'riss, I suspect. Boatfinder, how old
would you judge this tree?'
    'Frozen time, perhaps thirty generations. Since it fell,
seven days, no more. And, it is pushed over.'
    'I smell something,' Karsa Orlong said, passing the reins
to