A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

continued,
reaching down to collect the fragment of scalp and
bone, then walked drunkenly back along the road.
    Another Edur fell, his left leg cut out from beneath him.
The remaining two quickly backed away, yelling at the
Letherii who were now hesitating three paces behind
the fight.
    The stranger pressed forward. He parried a thrust from
the Edur on the right with the longsword in his left hand –
sliding the blade under then over, drawing it leftward
before a twist of his wrist tore the weapon from the
attacker's hand; then a straight-arm thrust of his own
buried his point in the Edur's throat. At the same time he
reached over with the longsword in his right hand, feinting
high. The last Edur leaned back to avoid that probe,
attempting a slash aimed at clipping the stranger's wrist.
But the longsword then deftly dipped, batting the cutlass
away, even as the point drove up into the warrior's right eye
socket, breaking the delicate orbital bones on its way into
the forebrain.
    Advancing between the two falling Edur, the stranger
cut down the nearest two Letherii – at which point the
remaining eight broke and ran, past the wagons – where
the drivers were themselves scrambling in panicked
abandonment – and then alongside the row of staring
prisoners. Running, flinging weapons away, down the road.
    As one Letherii in particular moved opposite one of the
slaves, a leg kicked out, tripping the man, and it seemed
the chain-line writhed then, as the ambushing slave leapt
atop the hapless Letherii, loose chain wrapping round the
neck, before the slave pulled it taut. Legs kicked, arms
thrashed and hands clawed, but the slave would not relent,
and eventually the guard's struggles ceased.
    Silchas Ruin, the swords keening in his hands, walked up
to where Udinaas continued strangling the corpse. 'You can
stop now,' the albino Tiste Andii said.
    'I can,' Udinaas said through clenched teeth, 'but I
won't. This bastard was the worst of them. The worst.'
    'His soul even now drowns in the mist,' Silchas Ruin
said, turning as two figures emerged from the brush lining
the ditch on the south side of the road.
    'Keep choking him,' said Kettle, from where she was
chained farther down the line. 'He hurt me, that one.'
    'I know,' Udinaas said in a grating voice. 'I know.'
    Silchas Ruin approached Kettle. 'Hurt you. How?'
    'The usual way,' she replied. 'With the thing between his
legs.'
    'And the other Letherii?'
    The girl shook her head. 'They just watched. Laughing,
always laughing.'
    Silchas Ruin turned as Seren Pedac arrived.
    Seren was chilled by the look in the Tiste Andii's
uncanny eyes as Silchas Ruin said, 'I will pursue the
ones who flee, Acquitor. And rejoin you all before day's
end.'
    She looked away, her gaze catching a momentary glimpse
of Fear Sengar, standing over the corpses of the Merude
Tiste Edur, then quickly on, to the rock-littered plain to the
south – where still wandered the Tiste Edur who'd lost a
third of his skull. But that sight as well proved too
poignant. 'Very well,' she said, now squinting at the wagons
and the horses standing in their yokes. 'We will continue
on this road.'
    Udinaas had finally expended his rage on the Letherii
body beneath him, and he rose to face her. 'Seren Pedac,
what of the rest of these slaves? We must free them all.'
    She frowned. Exhaustion was making thinking difficult.
Months and months of hiding, fleeing, eluding both Edur
and Letherii; of finding their efforts to head eastward
blocked again and again, forcing them ever northward, and
the endless terror that lived within her, had driven all
acuity from her thoughts. Free them. Yes. But then . . .
    'Just more rumours,' Udinaas said, as if reading her mind,
as if finding her thoughts before she did. 'There's plenty of
those, confusing our hunters. Listen, Seren, they already
know where we are, more or less. And these slaves – they'll
do whatever they can to avoid recapture. We need not
worry overmuch about them.'
    She raised her brows. 'You vouch for your fellow
Indebted, Udinaas? All of whom will turn away from a
chance to buy their way clear with vital information, yes?'
    'The only alternative, then,' he said, eyeing her, 'is to kill
them all.'
    The ones listening, the ones not yet beaten down into
mindless automatons, suddenly raised their voices in
proclamations and promises, reaching out towards Seren,
chains rattling. The others looked up in fear, like myrid
catching scent of a wolf they could not see. Some cried