distant. Two horses stood near him, and there were humps in the grass of the knoll, scattered like ant hills or boulders but, she knew, neither of those. ‘He was attacked,’ she said. ‘The idiots should have left well enough alone.’
‘I’m sure their ghosts concur,’ Traveller said.
They cantered closer.
The Toblakai looked no different from the last time she had seen him-there on the sands of the arena in Letheras. As sure, as solid, as undeniable as ever. ‘I shall kill him… once.’ And so he did. Defying… everything. Oh, he was look-ing at her now, and at Havok, with the air of a master summoning his favourite hunting dog.
And suddenly she was furious. ‘This wasn’t obligation!’ she snapped, savagely reining in directly in front of him. ‘You abandoned us-there in that damned foreign city! “Do this when the time is right”, and so I did! Where the Hood did you go? And-’
And then she yelped, as the huge warrior swept her off the saddle with one massive arm, and closed her in a suffocating embrace, and the bastard was laughing and even Traveller-curse the fool-was grinning, although to be sure it was a hard grin, mindful as he clearly was of the half-dozen bodies lying amidst blood and entrails in the grasses.
‘Witch!’
‘Set me down!’
‘I am amazed,’ he bellowed, ‘that Havok suffered you all this way!’
‘Down!’
So he dropped her. Jarring her knees, sending her down with a thump on her backside, every bone rattled. She glared up at him. But Karsa Orlong had already turned away and was eyeing Traveller, who re-mained on his horse. ‘You are you her husband then? She must have had one somewhere-no other reason for her forever refusing me. Very well, we shall light for her, you and me-’
‘Be quiet, Karsa! He’s not my husband and no one’s fighting for me. Because I belong to no one but me! Do you understand? Will you ever understand?’
‘Samar Dev has spoken,’ said Traveller. ‘We met not long ago, both journeying on this plain! We chose to ride as companions. I am from Dal Hon, on the continent of Quon Tali-’
Karsa grunted. ‘Malazan.’
An answering nod. ‘I am called Traveller.’
‘You hide your name.’
‘What I hide merely begins with my name, Karsa Orlong.’ The Toblakai’s eyes thinned at that.
‘You bear the tattoos,’ Traveller went on, ‘of an escaped slave of Seven Cities. Or, rather, a recaptured one. Clearly, the chains did not hold you for long.’
Samar Dev had picked herself up and was now brushing the dust from her clothes. ‘Are these Skathandi?’ she asked, gesturing at the bodies. ‘Karsa?’
The giant turned away from his study of the Malazan. ‘Idiots,’ he said. ‘Seeking vengeance for the dead king-as if I killed him.’
‘Did you?’
‘No.’
‘Well,’ she said, ’at least now I will have a horse of my own.’
Karsa walked over to Havok and settled a hand on his neck. The beast’s nos-trils flared and the lips peeled back to reveal the overlong fangs. Karsa laughed. ‘Yes, old friend, I smell Of death. When was it never thus?’ And he laughed again.
‘Hood take you, Karsa Orlong-what happened?’
He frowned at her. ‘What do you mean, Witch?’
‘You killed the Emperor.’
‘I said I would, and so I did.’ He paused, and then said, ‘And now this Malazan speaks as if he would make me a slave once more.’
‘Not at all,’ said Traveller. ‘It just seems as if you have lived an eventful life, Toblakai. I only regret that I will probably never hear your tale, for I gather that you are not the talkative type.’
Karsa Orlong bared his teeth, and then swung up into the saddle. ‘I am riding north,’ he said.
‘As am I,’ replied Traveller.
Samar Dev collected both horses and tied a long lead to the one she decided she would not ride, then climbed into the saddle of the other-a russet gelding with a broad back and disinterested eyes. ‘I think I want to go home,’ she pronounced. ‘Meaning I need to find a port, presumably on the western coast of this continent.’
Traveller said, ‘I ride to Darujhistan. Ships ply the lake and the river that flows to the coast you seek. I would welcome the company, Samar Dev.’
‘Darujhistan,’ said Karsa Orlong. ‘I have heard of that city. Defied the Malazan Empire and so still free. I will see it for myself.’’Fine then,’ Samar Dev snapped. ‘Let’s ride on, to the next pile of corpses-and with you for company, Karsa Orlong, that shouldn’t be long-and then we’ll ride to the next one and so on, right across this entire continent. To Darujhistan! Wherever in Hood’s name that is.’
‘I will see it,’ Karsa said again. ‘But I will not stay long.’ And he looked at her with suddenly fierce eyes. ‘I am returning home, Witch.’
‘To forge your army,’ she said, nodding, sudden nerves tingling in her gut.
‘And then the world shall witness.’
‘Yes.’
After a moment, the three set out, Karsa Orlong on her left, Traveller on her right, neither speaking, yet they were histories, tomes of past, present and future. Between them, she felt like a crumpled page of parchment, her life a minor scrawl.
High, high above them, a Great Raven fixed preternatural eyes upon the three figures far below, and loosed a piercing cry, then tilted its broad black-sail wings and raced on a current of chill wind, rushing east.
She thought she might be dead. Every step she took was effortless, a product of will and nothing else-no shifting of weight, no swing of legs nor flexing of knees. Will carried her where she sought to go, to that place of formless light where the white sand glowed blindingly bright beneath her, at the proper distance had she been standing. Yet, looking down, she saw nothing of her own body. No limbs, no torso, and nowhere to any side could she see her shadow.
Voices droned somewhere ahead, but she was not yet ready for them, so she remained where she was, surrounded in warmth and light.
Pulses, as from torches flaring through thick mist, slowly approached, disconnected from the droning voices, and she now saw a line of figures drawing towards her. Women, heads tilted down, long hair over their faces, naked, each one heavy with pregnancy. The torch fires hovered over each one, fist-sized suns in which rainbow flames flickered and spun.
Salind wanted to recoil. She was a Child of a Dead Seed, after all. Born from a womb of madness. She had nothing for these women. She was no longer a priestess, no longer able to confer the blessing of anyone, no god and least of all herself, upon any child waiting to tumble into the world.
Yet those seething orbs of flame-she knew they were the souls of the unborn, the not-yet-born, and these mothers were walking towards her, with purpose, with need.
I can give you nothing! Go away!
Still they came on, faces lifting, revealing eyes dark and empty, and seemed not to see her even as, one by one, they walked through Salind. Gods, some of these women were not even human.
And as each one passed through her, she felt the life of the child within. She saw the birth unfolding, saw the small creature with those strangely wise eyes that seemed to belong to every newborn (except, perhaps, her own). And then theyears rushing on, the child growlng, faces taking the shape they would carry into old age-
But not all. As mother after mother stepped through her, futures flashed bright, and some died quickly indeed. Fraught, flickering sparks, ebbing, winking out, darkness rushing in. And at these she cried out, filled with anguish even as she un-derstood that souls travelled countless journeys, of which only one could be known by a mortal-so many, in countless perturbations-and that the loss belonged only to others, never to the child itself, for in its inarticulate, ineffable wisdom, understanding was absolute; the passage of life that seemed tragically short could well be the perfect duration, the experience complete-
