The Bonehunters

Heart hammering in her chest, Samar Dev pushed into the stand, clawing aside undergrowth, webs pulling against her before snapping, dust and bark flakes cascading down-while the slaughter somewhere ahead continued.

Weapons clashed, iron against stone. The crunch of splintered wood – blurred motion between trees ahead of her, figures running – a body, cartwheeling in a mist of crimson – she reached the edge of the encampmentAnd saw Karsa Orlong – and a half hundred, maybe more, tall greyskinned warriors, wielding spears, cutlasses, long-knives and axes, now closing in on the Toblakai.

Karsa's path into their midst was marked by a grisly corridor of corpses and fallen, mortally wounded foes.

But there were too manyThe huge flint sword burst into view at the end of a sweeping upswing, amid fragments of bone and thick, whipping threads of gore. Two figures reeled back, a third struck so hard that his moccasined feet flashed up and over at Karsa's eye-level, and, falling back, dragged down the spear-shafts of two more warriors – and into that opening the Toblakai surged, evading a half-dozen thrusts and swings, most of them appearing in his wake, for the giant's speed was extraordinary – no, more, it was appalling.

The two foes, weapons snagged, sought to launch themselves back, beyond the reach of Karsa – but his sword, lashing out, caught the neck of the one on the left – the head leapt free of the body – then the blade angled down to chop clean through the other warrior's right shoulder, severing the arm.

Karsa's left hand released its grip on his sword, intercepting the shaft of a thrusting spear, then pulling both weapon and wielder close, the hand releasing the haft to snap up and round the man's neck. Fluids burst from the victim's eyes, nose and mouth as the Toblakai crushed that neck as if it were little more than a tube of parchment. A hard push flung the twitching body into the pressing mass, fouling yet more weaponsSamar Dev could barely track what her eyes saw, for even as Karsa's left hand had moved away from the sword's grip, the blade itself was slashing to the right, batting aside enemy weapons, then wheeling up and over, and, while the warrior's throat was collapsing in that savage clutch, the sword crashed down through an up-flung cutlass and into flesh and bone, shattering clavicle, then a host of ribsTearing the sword loose burst the ribcage, and Samar stared to see the victim's heart, still beating, pitch free of its broken nest, dangling for a moment from torn arteries and veins, before the warrior fell from sight.

Someone was screaming – away from the battle – off to the far left, where there was a shoreline of rocks, and, beyond, open water – a row of low-slung, broad-beamed wooden canoes – and she saw there a woman, slight, golden-haired – a human – casting spells.

Yet whatever sorcery she worked seemed to achieve nothing. Impossibly, Karsa Orlong had somehow carved his way through to the other side of the press, where he spun round, his back to a huge pine, the flint sword almost contemptuous in its batting aside attacks – as the Toblakai paused for a rest.

Samar could not believe what she was seeing.

More shouts now, a single warrior, standing well beyond the jostling mob, bellowing at his companions – who began to draw back, disengaging from Karsa Orlong.

Seeing the Toblakai draw a deep, chest-swelling breath, then raise his sword, Samar Dev yelled, 'Karsa! Wait! Do not attack, damn you!'

The cold glare that met her gaze made Samar flinch.

The giant gestured with the sword. 'See what's left of the Anibar, woman?' His voice was deep in tone, the beat of words like a drum of war.

She nodded, refusing to look once more at the row of prisoners, bound head-down and spreadeagled to wooden frames along the inland edge of the encampment, their, naked forms painted red in blood, and before each victim a heap of live embers, filling the air with the stench of burnt hair and meat. Karsa Orlong, she realized, had been driven by rage, yet such fury set no tremble in the huge warrior, the sword was motionless, now, held at the ready, the very stillness of that blade seeming to vow a tide of destruction. 'I know,' she said. 'But listen to me, Karsa. If you kill them all – and I see that you mean to do just that – but listen! If you do, more will come, seeking to find their vanished kin. More will come, Toblakai, and this will never end – until you make a mistake, until there are so many of them that even you cannot hope to prevail. Nor can you be everywhere at once, so more Anibar will die.'

'What do you suggest, then, woman?'

She strode forward, ignoring, for the moment, the grey-skinned warriors and the yellow-haired witch. 'They fear you now, Karsa, and you must use that fear-' She paused, distracted by a commotion from among the half-tent-half-huts near the beached canoes. Two warriors were dragging someone into view. Another human. His face was swollen by constant beatings, but he seemed otherwise undamaged. Samar Dev studied the new arrival with narrowed eyes, then quickly approached Karsa, lowering her voice to a harsh whisper. 'They now have an interpreter, Karsa. The tattoos on his forearms. He is Taxilian.