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The warriors pinned the animal to the rounded back wall of the clay kiln with spears, stabbing at the snapping, shrieking beast until it was dead When they withdrew their spears they saw the shafts chewed and slick with spit and blood; they saw iron dented and scored

Madness, they knew, could remain hidden, buried far beneath the surface, a subtle flavour turning blood into so bitter The shamans examined the three victims; two had already died of their wounds, but the child still clung to life

In solemn procession he was carried by his father to the Faces in the Rock, laid down in the glade before the Seven Gods of the Teblor, and left there

He died a short while later Alone in his pain before the hard visages carved into the cliff-face

This was not an unexpected fate The child, after all, had been too young to pray

All of this, of course, happened centuries past Long before the Seven Gods opened their eyes

Urugal the Woven’s Year 1159 Burn’s Sleep

They were glorious tales Farues The trophies of that day, so long ago, cluttered the loalls of his grandfather’s longhouse Scarred skull-pates, frail-lookingmade of some unknown material, now smoke-blackened and tattered Small ears nailed to every wooden post that reached up to the thatched roof

Evidence that Silver Lake was real, that it existed in truth, beyond the forest-clad h hidden passes, a week-perhaps two-distant froht, passing through territories held by the Sunyd and Rathyd clans, a journey that was itself a tale of legendary proportions Moving silent and unseen through ene the hearthstones to deliver deepest insult, eluding the hunters and trackers day and night until the borderlands were reached, then crossed-the vista ahead unknown, its riches not even yet drearandfather’s tales They stood like a legion, defiant and fierce, before the pallid, e, who had done nothing in his life, who tended his horses in his valley and had not once ventured into hostile lands Synyg, as both his father’s and his son’s greatest sha had more than once defended his herd of horses from raiders from other clans, and defended well, with honourable ferocity and admirable skill But this was only to be expected froal the Woven was the clan’s Face in the Rock, and Urugal was counted aods The other clans had reason to fear the Uryd

Nor had Synyg proved less thanDances Karsa’s skill with the bloodwood blade far surpassed his years He was counted a the finest warriors of the clan While the Uryd disdained use of the bow, they excelled with spear and atlatl, with the toothed-disc and the black-rope, and Synyg had taught his son an impressive efficiency with these weapons as well

None the less, such training was to be expected from any father in the Uryd clan Karsa could find no reason for pride in such things The Fighting Dances were but preparation, after all Glory was found in all that followed, in the contests, the raids, in the vicious perpetuation of feuds

Karsa would not do as his father had done He would not do… nothingNo, he would walk his grandfather’s path More closely than anyone ine Too much of the clan’s reputation lived only in the past The Uryd had grown co the Teblor Pahlk had hts when his bones ached from old wounds and the shame that was his son burned deepest

A return to the old ways And I, Karsa Orlong, shall lead Delum Thord is with

We have counted coup We have slain enemies Stolen horses Shifted the hearthstones of the Kellyd and the Buryd

And noith the new al, we shall weave our way to Silver Lake To slay the children ell there

He relade, head bowed beneath the Faces in the Rock, knowing that Urugal’s visage, high on the cliff-face, ods, all with their own clans barring Siballe, as the Unfound, glared down upon Karsa with envy and hate None of their children knelt before them, after all, to voice such bold vows

Coued all the clans of the Teblor, Karsa suspected The world beyond the mountains dared not encroach, had not attempted to do so in decades No visitors ventured into Teblor lands Nor had the Teblor theer, as they had often done generations past The last randfather To the shores of Silver Lake, where farms squatted like rotted mushrooms and children scurried like mice Back then, there had been two fars Now, Karsa believed, there would be hter would pale to that delivered by Karsa, Delum and Bairoth