Torbal Loat was the leader of a band of soldiers who had staked out an area of the ruined Moon's Spawn. He was fat, unshaven and his hair hung in a tangled mess around a bald dome on his head. He wore several rings on his hands. At some point during before the Genabackan campaigns, he had carved some territory out for himself in the North, before being driven out by the Malazans. Antsy had participated in that campaign and hence remembered Torbal's name.