A sword hissed towards his neck from the right. Still in close-quarter guard, Karsa spun to take the blade with his own, the impact ringing both weapons with a pealing, sonorous sound.
He heard the closing step of the Rathyd behind him, felt the air cleave to the blade swinging in towards his left shoulder, and he pitched instantly down and to his right. Wheeling his own sword around, arms extending as he fell. The edge swept above and past the warrior’s savage downstroke, cut through a pair of thick wrists, then tore through abdomen, from belly-button and across, between ribcage and point of hip, then bursting clear.
Still spinning as he toppled, he renewed the swing that had been staggered by bone and flesh, twisting his shoulders to follow the blade as it passed beneath him, then around to the other side. The slash cleared the ground at a level that took the last Rathyd’s left leg at the ankle. Then the ground hammered into Karsa’s right shoulder. Rolling away, his sword trailing crossways across his own body, deflecting but not quite defeating a downward blow-fire tearing into his right hip-then he was beyond the warrior’s reach-and the man was shrieking and stumbling an awkward retreat.
Karsa’s roll brought him upright once more, into a crouch that spurted blood down his right leg, that sent stinging stabs into his left side, his back beneath his right shoulder blade, and his left thigh where the knives were still buried.
He found himself facing the youth.
No more than forty, not yet at his full height, lean of limb as the Unready often were. Eyes filled with horror.
Karsa winked, then wheeled around to close on the one-footed warrior.
His shrieks had grown frenzied, and Karsa saw that Bairoth and Delum had reached him and had joined in the game, their blades taking the other foot and both hands. The Rathyd was on the ground between them, limbs jerking and spurting blood across the trampled grass.
Karsa glanced back to see the youth fleeing towards the woods. The warleader smiled.
Bairoth and Delum began chasing the floundering Rathyd warrior about, chopping pieces from his flailing limbs.
They were angry, Karsa knew. He had left them nothing. Ignoring his two companions and their brutal torture, he plucked the butchering knife from his thigh. Blood welled but did not spurt, telling him that no major artery or vein had been touched. The knife in his left side had skittered along ribs and lay embedded flat beneath skin and a few layers of muscle. He drew the weapon out and tossed it aside. The last knife, sunk deep into his back, was harder to reach and it took a few attempts before he managed to find a sure clasp of its smeared handle and then pull it out. A longer blade would have reached his heart. As it was, it would probably be the most irritating of the three minor wounds. The sword-cut into his hip and through part of a buttock was slightly more serious. It would have to be carefully sewn, and would make both riding and walking painful for a while.
Loss of blood or a fatal blow had silenced the dismembered Rathyd, and Karsa heard Bairoth’s heavy steps approach. Another scream announced Delum’s examination of the other fallen. ‘Warleader.’ Anger made the voice taut. Karsa slowly turned. ‘Bairoth Gild.’
The heavy warrior’s face was dark. ‘You let the youth escape. We must hunt him, now, and it will not be easy for these are his lands, not ours.’
‘He is meant to escape,’ Karsa replied. Bairoth scowled.
‘You’re the clever one,’ Karsa pointed out, ‘why should this baffle you so?’
‘He reaches his village.’
‘Aye.’
‘And tells of the attack. Three Uryd warriors. There is rage and frenzied preparations.’ Bairoth allowed himself a small nod as he continued. ‘A hunt sets out, seeking three Uryd warriors. Who are on foot. The youth is certain on this. Had the Uryd had horses, they would have used them, of course. Three against eight, to do otherwise is madness. So the hunt confines itself, in what it seeks, in its frame of thought, in all things. Three Uryd warriors, on foot.’
Delum had joined them, and now eyed Karsa without expression.
Karsa said, ‘Delum Thord would speak.’
‘I would, Warleader. The youth, you have placed an image in his mind. It will harden there, its colours will not fade, but sharpen. The echo of screams will become louder in his skull. Familiar faces, frozen eternal in expressions of pain. This youth, Karsa Orlong, will become an adult. And he will not be content to follow, he will lead. He must lead; and none shall challenge his fierceness, the gleaming wood of his will, the oil of his desire. Karsa Orlong, you have made an enemy for the Uryd, an enemy to pale all we have known in the past.’
