House of Chains
‘You are now a renegade among your own kind, then,’ Onrack observed. ‘I have no faith in traitors.’
‘To my own kind, T’lan Imass, I am not the traitor. That epithet belongs to the one who chained me here. In any case, the question of faith cannot be answered through negotiation.’
‘Should you have made that admission, Edur?’
The man grimaced. ‘Why not? I would not deceive you.’
Now, Onrack was truly curious. ‘Why would you not deceive me?’
‘For the very cause that has seen me Shorn,’ the Edur replied. ‘I am plagued by the need to be truthful.’
‘That is a dreadful curse,’ the T’lan Imass said.
‘Yes.’
Onrack lifted his sword. ‘In this case, I admit to possessing a curse of my own. Curiosity.’
‘I weep for you.’
‘In my heart, T’lan Imass.’
A single blow shattered the chains. With his free right hand, Onrack reached down and clutched one of the Edur’s ankles. He dragged the man after him along the top of the wall.
‘I would rail at the indignity of this,’ the Tiste Edur said as he was pulled onward, step by scuffing step, ‘had I the strength to do so.’
Onrack made no reply. Dragging the man with one hand, his sword with the other, he trudged forward, his progress eventually taking them past the area of weakness on the wall.
‘You can release me now,’ the Tiste Edur gasped.
‘Can you walk?’
‘No, but-’
‘Then we shall continue like this.’
‘Where are you going, then, that you cannot afford to wait for me to regain my strength?’
There was silence between them for a time, apart from the creaks from Onrack’s bones, the rasp of his hide-wrapped feet, and the hiss and thump of the Tiste Edur’s body and limbs across the mud-layered stones. The detritus-filled sea remained unbroken on their left, a festering marshland on their right. They passed between and around another dozen catfish, these ones not quite as large yet fully as limbed as the previous group. Beyond them, the wall stretched on unbroken to the horizon.
In a voice filled with pain, the Tiste Edur finally spoke again. ‘Much more… T’lan Imass… and you’ll be dragging a corpse.’
Onrack considered that for a moment, then he halted his steps and released the man’s ankle. He slowly swung about.
Groaning, the Tiste Edur rolled himself onto his side. ‘I assume,’ he gasped, ‘you have no food, or fresh water.’
Onrack lifted his gaze, back to the distant humps of the catfish. ‘I suppose I could acquire some. Of the former, that is.’
‘Can you open a portal, T’lan Imass? Can you get us out of this realm?’
‘No.’
The Tiste Edur lowered his head to the clay and closed his eyes. ‘Then I am as good as dead in any case. None the less, I appreciate your breaking my chains. You need not remain here, though I would know the name of the warrior who showed me what mercy he could.’
‘Onrack. Clanless, of the Logros.’
Onraek stared down at the Tiste Edur for a while. Then the T’lan Imass stepped over the man and set off, retracing their path. He arrived among the catfish. A single chop downward severed the head of the nearest one.
The slaying triggered a frenzy among the others. Skin split, sleek four-limbed bodies tore their way free. Broad, needle-fanged heads swung towards the undead warrior in their midst, tiny eyes glistening. Loud hisses from all sides. The beasts moved on squat, muscular legs, three-toed feet thickly padded and clawed. Their tails were short, extending in a vertical fin back up their spines.
They attacked as would wolves closing on wounded prey.
Obsidian blade flashed. Thin blood sprayed. Heads and limbs flopped about.
One of the creatures launched itself into the air, huge mouth closing over Onrack’s skull. As its full weight descended, the T’lan Imass felt his neck vertebrae creak and grind. He fell backward, letting the animal drag him down.
Then he dissolved into dust.
And rose five paces away to resume his killing, wading among the hissing survivors. A few moments later they were all dead.
Onrack collected one of the corpses by its hind foot and, dragging it, made his way back to Trull Sengar.
The Tiste Edur was propped up on one elbow, his flat eyes fixed on the T’lan Imass. ‘For a moment,’ he said, ‘I thought I was having the strangest dream. I saw you, there in the distance, wearing a huge, writhing hat. That then ate you whole.’