The three Malazan soldiers were nowhere to be seen.
The bell was still pealing somewhere behind him, yet the town seemed strangely deserted.
Karsa jogged towards the corral. He arrived with no alarms raised, stepped over the railing, and made his way along the building’s wall towards the doorway.
It had been left open. The antechamber within held hooks, racks and shelves for weapons, but all such weapons had been removed. The close dusty air held the memory of fear. Karsa slowly entered. Another door stood opposite, this one shut.
A single kick sent it crashing inward.
Beyond, a large room with a row of cots on either side. Empty.
The echoes of the shattered door fading, Karsa ducked through the doorway and straightened, looking around, sniffing the air. The chamber reeked of tension. He felt something like a presence, still there, yet somehow managing to remain unseen. The warrior cautiously stepped forward. He listened for breathing, heard nothing, took another step.
The noose dropped down from above, over his head and down onto his shoulders. Then a wild shout, and it snapped tight around his neck.
As Karsa raised his sword to slice through the hemp rope, four figures descended behind him, and the rope gave a savage yank, lifting the Teblor off his feet.
There was a sudden splintering from above, followed by a desultory curse, then the crossbeam snapped, the rope slackening though the noose remained taut around Karsa’s throat. Unable to draw breath, he spun, sword cleaving in a horizontal slash-that passed through empty air. The Malazan soldiers, he saw, had already dropped to the floor and rolled away.
Karsa dragged the rope free of his neck, then advanced on the nearest scrambling soldier.
Sorcery hammered him from behind, a frenzied wave that engulfed the Teblor. He staggered, then, with a roar, shook it off.
He swung his sword. The Malazan before him leapt backward, but the blade’s tip connected with his right knee, shattering the bone. The man shrieked as he toppled.
A net of fire descended on Karsa, an impossibly heavy web of pain that drove him to his knees. He sought to slash at it, but his weapon was fouled by the flickering strands. It began constricting as if it possessed a life of its own.
The warrior struggled within the ever-tightening net, and in moments was rendered helpless.
The wounded soldier’s screams continued, until a hard voice rumbled a command and eerie light flashed in the room. The shrieks abruptly stopped.
Figures closed in around Karsa, one crouching down near his head. A dark-skinned, scarred face beneath a bald, tattoo-stitched pate. The man’s smile was a row of gleaming gold. ‘You understand Nathii, I take it. That’s nice. You’ve just made Limp’s bad leg a whole lot worse, and he won’t be happy about that. Even so, you stumbling into our laps will more than make up for the house arrest we’re presently under-’
‘Let’s kill him, Sergeant-’
‘Enough of that, Shard. Bell, go find the slavemaster. Tell him we got his prize. We’ll hand him over, but not for nothing. Oh, and do it quietly-I don’t want the whole town outside with torches and pitchforks.’ The sergeant looked up as another soldier arrived. ‘Nice work, Ebron.’
‘I damned near wet my pants, Cord,’ the man named Ebron replied, ‘when he just threw off the nastiest I had.’
‘Just shows, don’t it?’ Shard muttered.
‘Shows what?’ Ebron demanded.
‘Well, only that clever beats nasty every time, that’s all.’
Sergeant Cord grunted, then said, ‘Ebron, see what you can do for Limp, before he comes round and starts screaming again.’
‘I’ll do that. For a runt, he’s got some lungs, don’t he just.’
Cord reached down and carefully slid his hand between the burning strands to tap a finger against the bloodsword. ‘So here’s one of the famed wooden swords. So hard it breaks Aren steel.’
‘Look at the edge,’ Shard said. ‘It’s that resin they use that makes that edge-’
‘And hardens the wood itself, aye. Ebron, this web of yours, is it causing him pain?’
The sorcerer’s reply came from beyond Karsa’s line of sight. ‘If it was you in that, Cord, you’d be howling to shame the Hounds. For a moment or two, then you’d be dead and sizzling like fat on a hearthstone.’
Cord frowned down at Karsa, then slowly shook his head. ‘He ain’t even trembling. Hood knows what we could do with five thousand of these bastards in our ranks.’
‘Might even manage to clean out Mott Wood, eh, Sergeant?’