Karsa Orlong

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Karsa Orlong is a fictional character in Steven Erikson's fantasy series Malazan Book of the Fallen. He makes his first appearance in the novel Deadhouse Gates as Toblakai, bodyguard to Sha'ik. His past is revealed in the subsequent novel House of Chains.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] History

[edit] The Teblor Giant

Karsa Orlong is a Teblor warrior, of the Uryd tribe. His grandfather, Pahlk Orlong, was a famed warrior who had, centuries before, gone into the lowlands from the Laederon Plateau and slew many "children", as the Teblor call lowlanders. Karsa grew up on these stories, and believed that was how a true Teblor warrior was to behave. Karsa's father, Synyg, did not approve of this mindset, for he knew Pahlk's exploits to be lies and twistings of the truth. However, no one else knew this, and so Karsa organized a raid in honor of both his grandfather and his god, Urugal the Woven. As Warleader of his group, he and his comrades, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord, raided through Sunyd and Rathyd lands to finally arrive at the same place where Pahlk had his escapades. Along the way, his group encountered and freed the Forkrul Assail known as Calm. Calm attacked Karsa, seeing the influence of the Teblor gods on him, but Karsa was barely injured, as Delum Thord defended him and received severe brain damage in the attempt, becoming reduced to a child-like state.

Upon reaching the lowlands, Karsa and his party found a small, fortified town instead of the farm his grandfather had raided. In the aftermath of the attack on this town, Delum Thord was killed and Bairoth Gild and Karsa were both captured. Karsa was soon after sold into slavery, and lost his faith in his gods. After weeks of being chained to a wagon bed for transport to the sea, Karsa and his companion, Torvald Nom, found freedom in the fragment of Kurald Emurlahn known as the Nascent. During their time in this realm, Karsa and Torvald boarded the Silanda, and slew the Tiste Edur on board. They met up with other survivors from the slaving ship that had been wrecked in the Nascent, and returned to the normal world with them, arriving just off the shore of Seven Cities, near Ehrlitan. Karsa and Torvald Nom left the slavers behind on the shore, and encountered the supposedly-dead Napan Urko, who called himself Keeper and dabbled in archaeology. They left for Ehrlitan and were soon re-enslaved by the very same slaver, Silgar.

The group was captured by Malazan forces after arrival in Ehrlitan, Silgar claiming Karsa as a slave he had recaptured. Both Silgar and Karsa were imprisoned, and Karsa wound up with a tattoo on his face marking him as an escaped slave. Karsa and his cellmate later escaped, and fled into the Pan'potsun Odhan, whereupon Karsa was told of his true racial identity as a Thelomen Toblakai, from whom the Teblor people were descended. Karsa, known from this point on as Toblakai, goes with his cellmate, Leoman of the Flails, into the Holy Desert Raraku and becomes the loyal bodguard to Sha'ik.

[edit] A Destiny Glimmers

Eventually, Karsa Orlong left the Holy Desert Raraku. He had been persuaded to go in search of a Jhag horse, and thus went west into the Jhag Odhan. This move was also one his false gods desired. Along his journey, he encountered and fought Icarium, the Jhag known as the Slayer of the Ten Thousand, and Karsa's ironwood sword was destroyed. Neither Icarium nor Karsa was slain, as both were knocked unconscious in the clash.

Shortly thereafter, Karsa Orlong finally met his gods in the Jhag Odhan, who turned out to be T'lan Imass which were shattered in battle millennia earlier. They revealed to him that he was not just their pawn in their plans to regain physical form, but Karsa had also been made into the Knight of Chains. In a Tellann-infused sacred cavern, the seven Unbound T'lan Imass helped Karsa Orlong create an unbreakable sword of stone, into which the souls of Delum Thord and Bairoth Gild went, infusing it with bloodthirst. Karsa, now rearmed and faced with manifestations he could attack, shrugged off the facade of doing as the Unbound told him, and drove six of them off, further destroying the seventh, 'Siballe the Unfound. On his way out, he ran into the Tiste Edur warrior Trull Sengar and his T'lan Imass companion, Onrack. Karsa was not in a mood to kill them, and so the pair luckily survived.

Slightly later on, Karsa met a Jaghut and his sister, who helped Karsa obtain the Jhag horse he set out to collect in the first place. Karsa then turned around and rode back into the Holy Desert.

Upon arriving back in the Oasis at the time of the final battle in which the Army of the Apocalyse was crushed, Karsa proceeded to kill several members of the camp with whom he had issues, though he could not find all of his targets. While running around the camp, Karsa encountered the two Hounds of Darkness, known as Deragoth, who had returned to life, and butchered them with a frighteningly small amount of problem. He tied the Hounds' heads to his horse, and sped off into the desert at dawn, telling the Malazan forces he had no wish to kill them. Yet.

Karsa then set off, vowing to return home and claim the army the Unbound T'lan Imass had set aside for him and use that force to raise his people from the level to which they had sunk.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen

By Steven Erikson