The hares were ready. The three warriors ate in silence. ‘Delum has spoken,’ Bairoth said when they were done, ‘of the words written in the cave.’
Karsa shot Delum a glare. ‘Delum Thord spoke when he should not have. Within the cave, a madman’s ravings, nothing more.’
‘I have considered them,’ Bairoth persisted, ‘and I believe there is truth hidden within those ravings, Karsa Orlong.’
‘Pointless belief, Bairoth Gild.’
‘I think not, Warleader. The names of the tribes-I agree with Delum when he says there are, among them, the names of our tribes. “Urad” is far too close to Uryd to be accidental, especially when three of the other names are unchanged. Granted, one of those tribes has since vanished, but even our own legends whisper of a time when there were more tribes than there are now. And those two words that you did not know, Karsa Orlong. “Great villages” and “yellow bark”-’
‘Those were not the words!’
‘True enough, but that is the closest Delum could come to. Karsa Orlong, the hand that inscribed those words was from a place and time of sophistication, a place and a time where the Teblor language was, if anything, more complex than it is now.’
Karsa spat into the fire. ‘Bairoth Gild, if these be truths as you and Delum say, I still must ask: what value do they hold for us now? Are we a fallen people? That is not a revelation. Our legends all speak of an age of glory, long past, when a hundred heroes strode among the Teblor, heroes that would make even my own grandfather, Pahlk, seem but a child among men-’
Delum’s face in the firelight was deeply frowning as he cut in, ‘And this is what troubles me, Karsa Orlong. Those legends and their tales of glory-they describe an age little different from our own. Aye, more heroes, greater deeds, but essentially the same, in the manner of how we lived. Indeed, it often seems that the very point of those tales is one of instruction, a code of behaviour, the proper way of being a Teblor.’
Bairoth nodded. ‘And there, in those carved words in the cave, we are offered the explanation.’
‘A description of how we would be,’ Delum added. ‘No, of how we are .’
‘None of it matters,’ Karsa growled.
‘We were a defeated people,’ Delum continued, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Reduced to a broken handful.’ He looked up, met Karsa’s eyes across the fire. ‘How many of our brothers and sisters who are given to the Faces in the Rock-how many of them were born flawed in some way? Too many fingers and toes, mouths with no palates, faces with no eyes. We’ve seen the same among our dogs and horses, Warleader. Defects come of inbreeding. That is a truth. The elder in the cave, he knew what threatened our people, so he fashioned a means of separating us, of slowly clearing our cloudy blood-and he was cast out as a betrayer of the Teblor. We were witness, in that cave, to an ancient crime-’
‘We are fallen,’ Bairoth said, then laughed.
Delum’s gaze snapped to him. ‘And what is it that you find so funny, Bairoth Gild?’
‘If I must needs explain, Delum Thord, then there is no point.’
Bairoth’s laughter had chilled Karsa. ‘You have both failed to grasp the true meaning of all this-’
Bairoth grunted, ‘The meaning you said did not exist, Karsa Orlong?’
‘The fallen know but one challenge,’ Karsa resumed. ‘And that is to rise once more. The Teblor were once few, once defeated. So be it. We are no longer few. Nor have we known defeat since that time. Who from the lowlands dares venture into our territories? The time has come, I now say, to face that challenge. The Teblor must rise once more.’
Bairoth sneered, ‘And who will lead us? Who will unite the tribes? I wonder.’
‘Hold,’ Delum rumbled, eyes glittering. ‘Bairoth Gild, from you I now hear unseemly envy. With what we three have done, with what our warleader has already achieved-tell me, Bairoth Gild, do the shadows of the ancient heroes still devour us whole? I say they do not. Karsa Orlong now walks among those heroes, and we walk with him.’
Bairoth slowly leaned back, stretching his legs out beside the hearth. ‘As you say, Delum Thord.’ The flickering light revealed a broad smile that seemed directed into the flames. ‘ “Who from the lowlands dares venture into our territories?” Karsa Orlong, we travel an empty valley. Empty of Teblor, aye. But what has driven them away? It may be that defeat stalks the formidable Teblor once more.’
There was a long moment when none of the three spoke, then Delum added another stick to the fire. ‘It may be,’ he said in a low voice, ‘that there are no heroes among the Sunyd.’