Barathol Mekhar

Barathol Mekhar was the blacksmith and nominal head of a tiny hamlet of a mere eighteen residents living in a scatter of hovels in the Sialk Odhan. The hamlet was at a crossroads of the Tapur Road and a trail leading into the Path'apur Mountains in Seven Cities, about three days' trek north was the city of Ahol Tapur. He was the only resident not born there and had lived in the hamlet for eleven years at the time of his first appearance in the Malazan books. He had not been talkative in all the years there.^[3]

He was a huge man with deep, almost onyx-black skin, dark eyes, and curled, military-looking scarification on his cheeks.^[4][5][6] His hands and huge forearms displayed puckering blade-cut scars.^[5] He was known as a man of few words and shared virtually no opinions, therefore perfectly suited to his role as the hamlet's unofficial leader.^[5]

Barathol possessed some armour which he kept under lock, hidden in a trunk behind some hide bolts in the smithy. A round-shield, a camailed, grille-faced helm with quilted padding as well as some chain mail. The iron-scaled gauntlets reached up to his forearm and ended in a hinged elbow-cup where they were fastened just above the joint and the underside of the sleeves held a single iron-black notched bar which stretched from wrist to cup. The trunk also contained a heavy double-bladed axe. Its haft was encased in strips of iron with a looping chain at the weighted pommel. To carry the axe in a fight, Barathol slipped his right hand through the chain loop and twisted it twice before grapping the haft. The blades of the axe were made of Aren steel and the honed edges gleamed silver. From the top of the axe, a three-pronged punch-spike jutted out, edged like a crossbow quarrel.^[7] He was of the same height as L'oric.^[8]

He belonged to the tribe of Mekhar which had lived west of Aren in Seven Cities.^[9] He bore a strong resemblance to his "cousin", Kalam Mekhar, albeit bigger, taller, and more friendly-looking.^[10]

Barathol seemed to be the self-appointed protector of Chaur.

In The Bonehunters

Five strangers appeared near the village whom Barathol identified as T'lan Imass and he asked for his armour and weapons to be brought out to him. He told the other villagers that the strangers might only be after him.^[11] but the T'lan Imass seemingly had not lingered and the villagers thought them gone. Months later however, a small travelling party was ambushed near the hamlet by the undead warriors. Barathol oversaw the clean-up and was amazed that two of the travellers had survived, one of them a pregnant woman. Then the mage L'oric turned up, who knew the victims, and a tense dialogue ensued between him and Barathol. They established that the target had been Felisin Younger, who had apparently had been kidnapped by The Unbound, the Crippled God's T'lan Imass servants.^[12]

Back at the inn, when L'oric heard and recognised Barathol's name, the two men almost came to blows. It turned out that Barathol had been stationed at Aren when the Malazans besieged the city and it was rumoured that he had opened the gate to let them in. He told L'oric that in fact, he had opened it to flee the city on the fastest horse and that at that point the T'lan Imass, who needed no open door in any case, had already begun their slaughter inside the city. Barathol had then fled along Aren Way to Karashimesh and had killed all those who had pursued him who apparently had been the only other survivors.^[13] When the T'lan Imass had come to the hamlet, Barathol first thought they had come for him.^[14]

Hayrith soon guessed that Barathol intended leaving the village with the surviving travellers and told him to his face that the appearance of L'oric and the subsequent disclosures had 'scorched' him. She reluctantly advised him to flee the continent because once word got out about his identity, he would likely be hunted. Barathol then spoke with the traveller Scillara, who had given birth to a baby girl but did not want to keep her. She told him that the other survivor, Cutter, would want to take the remains of their dead companion, Heboric, with them.^[15]

Barathol observed Chaur holding the baby, making faces and cooing sounds at it. When L'oric upset Chaur by taking the child away from him, Barathol made a sarcastic comment to the mage, who had not even noticed Chaur crying. "A question... how old do they have to get before you lose all sympathy for them?" Barathol then diverted Chaur by telling him that he would need his help digging up a body.^[16]

Barathol left the hamlet with Cutter and Scillara who were going to take Heboric's body to its final resting place on Otataral Island. Chaur caught up with them soon after they had left and Barathol let him stay with the group, knowing that Chaur was too stubborn to return. The smith attached Chaur's travelling pack to the mule and gave him his boots as Chaur was barefoot, and unlike the rest of them, would have to walk for the time being.^[17]

They came to a village on the coast, empty and depopulated by the Bluetongue Plague, where Cutter found a carrack, Sanal's Grief. They loaded it with their supplies and when they were under sail, Chaur held onto the steering oar and laughed with joy whenever the bow pitched down and there was spray. The innocence of his joy gave much needed comfort to his shipmates.^[18]

Their journey across the Otataral Sea was interrupted by the appearance of a dozen suns plummeting from the sky. A hail of fiery debris destroyed their carrack, and Chaur grasped Heboric's wrapped corpse as it disappeared into the depths. He became entangled by the cloth and would have drowned if Barathol had not dived after him and found him by the sudden jade glow of Heboric's body. While Scillara and Cutter were spotted and carried to a nearby ship by Spite in her Soletaken Eleint form, Barathol swam to the ship with Chaur in his arms. Aboard ship, he held Chaur's limp form in his arms and began angrily issuing Chaur orders. The others were convinced he lost his mind until Chaur coughed up a lungful of water and regained consciousness. Barathol assured the bawling young man he was not angry, before he began weeping himself.^[19]

In Reaper's Gale

While contemplating his experiences as a soldier, Gesler recalled the slaughter at Aren and how the civilian populace would have been completely slaughtered if not for Barathol opening the gates as an avenue of escape. The Malazan soldiers could only stand and watch helplessly.^[20]

In Toll the Hounds

After a miserable, much-delayed trip that took two whole seasons,^[21] Spite's ship brought Barathol, Cutter, Scillara, and Chaur to Darujhistan (along with Mappo Runt, Iskaral Pust, and Mogora). Barathol had grown close to Mappo during the voyage and offered to accompany the Trell and guard his back on his journey to Lether to find Icarium. But Mappo argued it was his own burden to bear.^[22] Barathol looked forward to being anonymous among the crowds of a city for the first time in years.^[23] He was described as a 'tourist' and Chaur as a 'gentle man'.^[24]

While Cutter rushed to reunite with his friends at the Phoenix Inn, Scillara accompanied Barathol and Chaur into the city where they bumped into Picker, Blend, and Antsy at a restaurant. The retired Bridgeburners noted Barathol's resemblance to their former comrade, Kalam Mekhar, and feared he was a Claw sent to kill them. A drinking contest defused the matter.^[25] The encounter ended back at K'rul's Bar where all but Chaur spent the evening sharing beds.^[26] The three continued to stay as residents in the bar's guest rooms.^[27]

Mallet offered to assist Barathol with establishing a smithy in Darujhistan, accompanying him to fill out the paperwork and find a suitable business location.^[28][29] But Barathol found it almost impossible to join the city's Guild of Blacksmiths as they refused to sponsor him, and he was too old and too experienced a blacksmith to serve an apprenticeship.^[30] Barathol went ahead anyway and set up an independent smithy without the endorsement of the Blacksmiths' Guild.^[31][32] He drove away a gang of Guild toughs sent to wreck his shop by brandishing an inert cusser given to him by the Bridgeburners.^[33] Another Guild agent received a fist to the face as the smith told him he would gladly pay the Guild's annual fees if only they admitted him. The Guild's next tactic was to blacklist anyone who provided him with supplies or bought his wares. This proved a mixed success as Malazan customers resisted the imperative^[34] and Barathol's smithy became the sole source for a new fad among the nobles for Malazan imperial longswords.^[35]

Barathol and Chaur returned to K'rul's Bar one evening to find it under attack by the Assassins' Guild. Chaur rushed inside to barrel over a half-dozen assassins on the verge of killing Blend. Barathol followed, helping Picker and Antsy end the battle. But many, including Mallet, were dead. Barathol hugged a weeping Chaur with relief, ^[36] but grieved over the loss of his new friend, Mallet.^[37] Barathol rebuffed any romantic interest from Scillara by claiming she left everyone spinning in her wake. He sought only a life beneath notice and without drama.^[38]

The Guild of Blacksmiths finally succeeded at shutting Barathol down when they had the smith and Chaur arrested by the City Watch for using the incorrect drainage pipes for waste disposal.^[39] Misunderstanding their situation, Chaur attacked the guards forcing Barathol to take them on the run. When the guards caught up to them, Barathol battled them alone, telling Chaur to run and hide on Spite's ship.^[40] Barathol was jailed at the Warden Barracks where he was visited by Antsy, Blend, and Scillara. As it turned out, he was to serve his six-month sentence through a rehabilitation programme at the Eldra Iron Mongers where he would be able to earn his ticket as a blacksmith--after which the Guild would be forced to accept his membership. Blend paid the associated fines out of respect for Kalam Mekhar, while Antsy was arrested for attempting to bring a sharper into the gaol.^[41]

On the last night of the Gedderone Fête, powerful forces converged on Darujhistan. The dueling Hounds of Light and Shadow, Pallid and Baran, crashed into the gaol, pinning Barathol in the rubble. Before Pallid could kill Barathol, it was barreled over by Chaur, who tossed Barathol a war-axe he had brought from the huge smithy. Pallid slammed into Chaur and left him unmoving before the Hound's battle with Baran carried it away. Barathol put Chaur's dying body in an ox-cart and enlisted the also freed Antsy to help him find a healer.^[42] They were first turned away by Baruk, who was too busy with the night's greater events. Antsy finally succeeded in placing Chaur with Raest at the Finnest House, where time would stop until they found someone who could help.^[43]

Barathol joined Karsa Orlong, the Seguleh Second, Tulas Shorn, and De nek okral, who had gathered to protect the fallen Anomander Rake's sword Dragnipur from the Hounds of Light. Barathol pulled the overmatched Cutter from the fight and passed him to Antsy. Then spotting Pallid, he sang out with joy to face the beast that had nearly killed Chaur. He shattered the beast's lower jaw with his axe before being flung back unconscious after colliding with Pallid's chest. At least six of the Hounds were killed before the surviving Hounds of Light were forced to flee without their prize.^[44] Caladan Brood commandeered Antsy and Barathol's ox-cart to remove Rake's body.^[45] The next morning, Barathol found Scillara in the belfry of K'rul's Bar, gave her a long kiss, and promised to be with her.^[46]

In Orb Sceptre Throne

Barathol had opened a smithy on the Street of Whitesmiths in the Gadrobi district and had married Scillara. Her son had been given the name Chaur.^[47]

Barathol and Humble Measure were enlisted by Kruppe to manufacture items which helped defeat the Legate.

Barathol was re-united with the simpleton Chaur. Barathol and his family moved to a villa received from Kruppe as reward.^[48]

History

Smithing was his second career and he had formerly been an officer of the Red Blades. L'oric recalled that Barathol had killed the Fist of Aren and had been immediately arrested by his fellow Red Blades. The Red Blades considered the murder the first and deepest stain on their honour and it had fueled their zealotry ever since. He was beaten and stripped of his rank and sentenced to be crucified on the Aren Way, when the entire city of Aren rose up in his name against the Malazan garrison, ousting them. When the T'lan Imass marched into the city to pacify the rebellion and begin their slaughter, Barathol had been seen escaping through the north gate.^[9]

This act made Barathol made infamous and hated, for many believed it doomed Aren by opening the gates to allow the T'lan Imass in. But according to Barathol himself, he only opened the gates to escape once the T'lan Imass were already in the city. He noted mere city walls would not have stop the dust-shifting T'lan Imass in any case and that they had already begun the slaughter when he opened the gate and fled. He also mentioned that he had not been asked first whether he had wanted people to rebel in his name - inferring that it happened against his wishes.^[49]

Barathol left the city with a hoard of stolen coins and fought a running battle against angry pursuers all the way to Karashimesh. Ever since, he had been hated and cursed and lived in hiding from those who wanted to kill him for his crimes.^[50][51] L'oric sensed Barathol had long given up on humanity and his own place in it.^[52]

Trivia

In some editions of Orb Sceptre Throne Barathol is referred to as Kalam's older brother, while in others it refers to him as Kalam's "relation".^[53] The text of Toll the Hounds can also be seen as ambiguous. When Blend asks Barathol, who greatly resembles Kalam, whether he is Kalam's cousin, Barathol replies, "That will do."^[54] It is unclear which is correct.

Notes and references