‘Everyone seeks to give me gifts. I reject them all. You believe yours is wondrous. Generous. You are nothing. Your empire is pathetic. I knew village dogs who were greater tyrants than you.’
‘Why do you torment me with such words? I am dying. You have killed me. And yet I do not despise you for that. No, I make you my heir. I give you my kingdom. My army will take your commands. Everything is yours now.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘If you do not take it, one of my officers will.’
‘This kingdom cannot exist without the slaves. Your army will become nothing more than one more band of raiders, and so someone will hunt them down and destroy them. And all you sought to build will be forgotten.’
‘You torment me.’
‘I tell you the truth. Let your officers come to kill me. I will destroy them all. And I will scatter your army. Blood to the grass.’
The Captain stared at this monster, and knew he could do nothing. He was sinking, back against his heap of pillows, every breath shallower than the last. Swathed in robes and furs, he was none the less cold. ‘You could have lied,’ he whispered.
The man’s last words. Karsa studied the dead face for a moment longer. Then he thumped against the panel door to his left. It opened a crack.
‘Everyone leave this carriage,’ Karsa commanded. ‘Take whatever you want-but you do not have much time.’Then he settled back once more, Scanned the remnants of the lavish feast he had devoured-while the Captain had simply watched, smug as a rich father even as he died. But Karsa was not his son. Not his heir, no matter what the fool de-sired. He was Toblakai. A Teblor, and far to the north waited his people.
Was he ready for them?
He was.
Would they be ready for him? Probably not.
A long walk awaited him-there was not a single horse in this paltry kingdom that could accommodate him. He thought back to his youth, to those bright days of hard drama, crowded with omens, when every blade of grass was saturated with significance-but it was the young mind that fashioned such things. Not yet bleached by the sun, not yet worn down by the wind. Vistas were to be crossed. Foes were to be vanquished with harsh barks of fierce triumph, blood spraying in the air.
Once, long ago it seemed now, he had set out to find glory, only to discover that it was nothing like what he had imagined it to be. It was a brutal truth that his companions then had understood so much better than he had, despite his being War Leader. Nevertheless, they had let themselves be pulled into his wake, and for this they had died. The power of Karsa’s own will had overwhelmed them. What could be learned from that?
Followers will follow, even unto their own deaths. There was a flaw to such people-the willingness to override one’s own instinct for self-preservation. And this flaw invited exploitation, perhaps even required it. Confusion and uncertainty surrendered to simplicity, so comforting, so deadly.
Without followers this Captain would have achieved nothing. The same the world over. Wars would disintegrate into the chaos of raids, skirmishes, massacres of the innocent, the vendetta of blood-feuds, and little else. Monuments would never be raised. No temples, no streets and roads, no cities. No ships, no bridges. Every patch of ploughed land would shrink to what a few could manage. Without followers, civilization would never have been born.
He would tell his people all this. He would make them not his followers, but his companions. And together they would bring civilization to ruin, whenever and wherever they found it. Because, for all the good it created, its sole purpose was to breed followers-enough to heave into motion forces of destruction, spreading a tide of blood at the whim of those few cynical tyrants born to lead. Lead, yes, with lies, with iron words-duty, honour, patriotism, freedom-that fed the wilfully stupid with grand purpose, with reason for misery and delivering misery in kind.
He had seen the enemy’s face, its twin masks of abject self-sacrifice and cold-eyed command. He had seen leaders feed on the flesh of the bravely fallen. And this is not the Teblor way. It shall not be my way.
The sounds of looting from the rooms around him were gone now. Silence on all sides. Karsa reached down and used a hook to lift the kettle from the coals and set it down on the small table amidst the foodstuffs, the silver plates and the polished goblets. Then he kicked the brazier over, scattering coals on to the beautifully woven carpets, into the silks and woollen blankets, the furs. He waited to see flames ig-nite.
When the first ones began, Karsa Orlong rose and, hunched over to clear the panel door, he made his way out.
Darkness in the world beyond the camp’s cookfires. A mad profusion of stars overhead. Arrayed in a vast semicircle facing the enormous carriage was the kingdom of the Captain. Karsa Orlong stood in front of the throne on the balcony.
‘The slaves are free,’ he said in a loud voice that carried to everyone. ‘The offi-cers will divide the loot, the horses and all the rest-an equal share for all, slaves and free, soldier and crafter. Cheat anyone and I will kill you.’
Behind him on the carriage, flames licked out from the countless windows and vents. Black smoke rose in a thickening column. He could feel the heat gusting against his back.
‘Come the dawn,’ he said, ‘everyone will leave. Go home. Those without a home-go find one. And know that the time I give you now is all that you will ever have. For when next you see me, when you are hiding there in your cities, I will come as a destroyer. Five years or twenty-it is what you have, what I give you. Use it well. All of you, live well.’
And that such a farewell should be received, not as a benediction, but as a threat, marked well how these people understood Karsa Orlong-who came from the north, immune to all weapons. Who slew the Captain without even touching him. Who freed the slaves and scattered the knights of the realm with not a single clash of swords.
The god of the Broken Face came among them, as each would tell others for the years left to them. And, so telling, with eyes wide and licking dry lips, they would reach in haste for the tankard and its nectar of forgetfulness.
Some, you cannot kill. Some are deliverers of death and judgement. Some, in wishing you a full life, promise you death. There is no lie in that promise, for does not death come to us all? And yet, how rare the one to say so. No sweet euphemism, no quaint colloquialism. No metaphor, no analogy. There is but one true poet in the world, and he speaks the truth.
Flee, my friends, but there is nowhere to hide. Nowhere at all.
See your fate, there in his Broken Face.
See it well.
Horses drawn to a halt on a low hilltop, grasses whispering unseen on all sides.
‘I once led armies,’ Traveller said. ‘I was once the will of the Emperor of Malaz.’
Samar Dev tasted bitterness and leaned to one side and spat. The man beside her grunted, as if acknowledging the gesture as commentary. ‘We served death, of course, in all that we did. For all our claims otherwise. Imposing peace, ending stupid feuds and tribal rivalries. Opening roads to mer-chants without fear of banditry. Coin flowed like blood in veins, such was the gilt of those roads and the peace we enforced. And yet, behind it all, he waited.’
‘All hail civilization,’ Samar Dev said. ‘Like a beacon in the dark wilderness,’
‘With a cold smile,’ Traveller continued, as if not hearing her, ‘he waits. Where all the roads converge, where every path ends. He waits.’ A dozen heartbeats passed, with nothing more said.
To the north something burned, lancing bright orange flames into the sky, lighting the bellies of churning clouds of black smoke. Like a beacon… ‘What burns?’ Traveller wondered.
Samar Dev spat again. She just couldn’t get that foul taste out of her mouth. ‘Karsa Orlong,’ she replied. ‘Karsa Orlong burns, Traveller. Because that is what he does.’
‘I do not understand you.’
‘It’s a pyre,’ she said. ‘And he does not grieve. The Skathandi are no more.’
‘When you speak of Karsa Orlong,’ Traveller said, ‘I am frightened.’ She nodded at that admission-a response he probably could not even see. The man beside her was an honest one. In many ways as honest as Karsa Orlong. And on the morrow these two would meet. Samar Dev well understood Traveller’s fear. The bulls ever walk alone to
