Bairoth grimaced. ‘As you say, Karsa Orlong.’
Delum in the lead, they rode at a slow canter down the centre of the walkway. The pack followed. To either side, the only trees that reached to the eye level of the mounted warriors were dead birch, their leafless, black branches wrapped, in the web of caterpillar nests. The living trees-aspen and alder and elm-reached no higher than chest height with their fluttering canopy of dusty-green leaves. Taller black spruce was visible in the distance. Most of these looked to be dead or dying.
‘The old river is returning,’ Delum commented. ‘This forest slowly drowns.’
Karsa grunted, then said, ‘This valley runs into others that all lead northward, all the way to the Buryd Fissure. Pahlk was among the Teblor elders who gathered there sixty years ago. The river of ice filling the Fissure had died, suddenly, and had begun to melt.’
Behind Karsa, Bairoth spoke. ‘We never learned what the elders of all the tribes discovered up there, nor if they had found whatever it was they were seeking.’
‘I did not know they were seeking anything in particular,’ Delum muttered. ‘The death of the ice river was heard in a hundred valleys, including our own. Did they not travel to the Fissure simply to discover what had happened?’
Karsa shrugged. ‘Pahlk told me of countless beasts that had been frozen within the ice for numberless centuries, becoming visible amidst the shattered blocks. Fur and flesh thawing, the ground and sky alive with crows and mountain vultures. There was ivory, but most of it was too badly crushed to be of any worth. The river had a black heart, or so its death revealed, but whatever lay within that heart was either gone or destroyed. Even so, there were signs of an ancient battle in that place. The bones of children. Weapons of stone, all broken.’
‘This is more than I have ever-’ Bairoth began, then stopped. The walkway, which had been reverberating to their passage, had suddenly acquired a deeper, syncopating thunder. The walkway ahead made a bend, forty paces distant, to the left, disappearing behind trees. The pack of dogs began snapping their jaws in voiceless warning. Karsa twisted round, and saw, two hundred paces behind them on the walkway, a dozen Rathyd warriors on foot. Weapons were lifted in silent promise.
Yet the sound of hoofs-Karsa swung forward again, to see six riders pitch around the bend. Warcries rang in the air.
‘Clear a space!’ Bairoth bellowed, driving his horse past Karsa, and then Delum. The bear skull sprang into the air, snapping as it reached the length of the straps, and Bairoth began whirling the massive, bound skull over his and his horse’s head, using both hands, his knees high on his destrier’s shoulders. The whirling skull made a deep, droning sound. His horse loped forward.
The Rathyd riders were at full charge. They rode two abreast, the edge of the walkway less than half an arm’s length away on either side.
They had closed to within twenty paces of Bairoth when he released the bear skull.
When two or three wolf skulls were used in this fashion, it was to bind or break legs. But Bairoth’s target was higher. The skull struck the destrier on the left with a force that shattered the horse’s chest. Blood sprayed from the animal’s nose and mouth. Crashing down, it fouled the beast beside it-no more than the crack of a single hoof against its shoulder, but sufficient to make it veer wildly, and plunge down off the walkway. Legs snapped. The Rathyd warrior flew over his horse’s head.
The rider of the first horse landed with bone-breaking impact on the walkway, at the very hoofs of Bairoth’s destrier. Those hoofs punched down on the man’s head in quick succession, leaving a shattered mess.
The charge floundered. Another horse went down, stumbling with a scream over the wildly kicking beast that now blocked the walkway.
Loosing the Uryd warcry, Bairoth drove his mount forward. A surging leap carried them over the first downed destrier. The Rathyd warrior from the other fallen horse was just clambering clear and had time to look up to see Bairoth’s sword-blade reach the bridge of his nose.
Delum was suddenly behind his comrade. Two knives darted through the air, passing Bairoth on his right. There was a sharp report as a Rathyd’s heavy sword-blade slashed across to block one of the knives, then a wet gasp as the second knife found the man’s throat.
Two of the enemy remained, one each for Delum and Bairoth, and so the duels could begin.
Karsa, after watching the effect of Bairoth’s initial attack, had wheeled his mount round. Sword in his hands, blade flashing into Havok’s vision, and they were charging back down the walkway towards the pursuing band.
The dog pack split to either side to avoid the thundering hoofs, then raced after rider and horse.
Ahead, eight adults and four youths.
A barked order sent the youths to either side of the walkway, then down. The adults wanted room, and, seeing their obvious confidence as they formed an inverted V spanning the walkway, weapons ready, Karsa laughed.
They wanted him to ride down into the centre of that inverted V-a tactic that, while it maintained Havok’s fierce speed, also exposed horse and rider to flanking attacks. Speed counted for much in the engagement to come. The Rathyd’s expectations fit neatly into the attacker’s intent-had that attacker been someone other than Karsa Orlong. ‘Urugal!’ he bellowed, lifting himself high on Havok’s shoulders. ‘Witness!’ He held his sword, point forward, over his destrier’s head, and fixed his gaze on the Rathyd warrior on the V’s extreme left.
Havok sensed the shift in attention and angled his charge just moments before contact, hoofs pounding along the very edge of the walkway.
The Rathyd directly before them managed a single backward step, swinging a two-handed overhead chop at Havok’s snout as he went.
Karsa took that blade on his own, even as he twisted and threw his right leg forward, his left back. Havok turned beneath him, surged in towards the centre of the walkway.
The V had collapsed, and every Rathyd warrior was on Karsa’s left.
Havok carried him diagonally across the walkway. Keening his delight, Karsa slashed and chopped repeatedly, his blade finding flesh and bone as often as weapon. Havok pitched around before reaching the opposite edge, and lashed out his hind legs. At least one connected, flinging a shattered body from the bridge.
The pack then arrived. Snarling bodies hurling onto the Rathyd warriors-most of whom had turned when engaging Karsa, and so presented exposed backs to the frenzied dogs. Shrieks filled the air.
Karsa spun Havok round. They plunged back into the savage press. Two Rathyd had managed to fight clear of the dogs, blood spraying from their blades as they backed up the walkway.
Bellowing a challenge, Karsa drove towards them.
And was shocked to see them both leap from the walkway.
‘Bloodless cowards! I witness! Your youths witness! These damned dogs witness!’
He saw them reappear, weapons gone, scrambling and stumbling across the bog.
Delum and Bairoth arrived, dismounting to add their swords to the maniacal frenzy of the surviving dogs as they tore unceasing at fallen Rathyd.
Karsa drew Havok to one side, eyes still on the fleeing warriors, who had been joined now by the four youths. ‘I witness! Urugal witnesses!’
Gnaw, black and grey hide barely visible beneath splashes of gore, panted up to stand beside Havok, his muscles twitching but no wounds showing. Karsa glanced back and saw that four more dogs remained, whilst a fifth had lost a foreleg and limped a red circle off to one side.
‘Delum, bind that one’s leg-we will sear it anon.’
‘What use a three-legged hunting dog, Warleader?’ Bairoth asked, breathing heavy.
‘Even a three-legged dog has ears and a nose, Bairoth Gild. One day, she will lie grey-nosed and fat before my hearth, this I swear. Now, is either of you wounded?’
‘Scratches.’ Bairoth shrugged, turning away.
‘I have lost a finger,’ Delum said as he drew out a leather strap and approached the wounded dog, ‘but not an important one.’
Karsa looked once more at the retreating Rathyd. They had almost reached a stand of black spruce. The warleader sent them a final sneer, then laid a hand on Havok’s brow. ‘My father spoke true, Havok. I have never ridden such a horse as you.’
An ear had cocked at his words. Karsa leaned forward and set his lips to the beast’s brow. ‘We become, you and I,’ he whispered, ‘legend. Legend, Havok.’ Straightening, he studied the sprawl of corpses on the walkway, and
