Toll the Hounds

by Steven Erikson

  His clan-master had warned that the targets were all ex-soldiers, but Dester Thrin had seen little to suggest that any of them had kept fit and trim. They were old, sagging, rarely sober, and this one, well, she wore that huge, thick woollen cloak because she was getting heavy and it clearly made her self-conscious.

  Following her through the crowds had been relatively easy – she was a head taller than the average Gadrobi, and the route she took to this decrepit Rhivi market in Lakefront seemed to deliberately avoid the Daru streets, some strange affectation that would, in a very short time, prove fatal.

  Dester’s own Daru blood had permitted him a clear view of his target, pushing purposefully through the heaving press of celebrants.

  He set out to traverse the alley once his target exited at the far end. Swiftly padding at a hunter’s pace, he reached the alley mouth and edged out, in time to see the woman move into the passageway through Second Tier Wall, with the tunnel through Third just beyond.

  The Guild’s succession wars, following the disappearance of Vorcan, had finally been settled, with only a minimum amount of spilled blood. And Dester was more or less pleased with the new Grand Master, who was both vicious and clever where most of the other aspirants had been simply vicious. At last, an assassin of the Guild did not have to be a fool to feel some optimism regarding the future.

  This contract was a case in point. Straightforward, yet one sure to earn Dester and the others of his clan considerable prestige upon its summary completion.

  He brushed his gloved hands across the pommels of his daggers, the weapons slung on baldrics beneath his arms. Ever reassuring, those twin blades of Daru steel with their ferules filled with the thick, pasty poison of Moranth tralb.

  Poison was now the preferred insurance for a majority of the Guild’s street killers, and indeed for more than a few who scuttled Thieves’ Road across the rooftops. There’d been an assassin, close to Vorcan herself, who had, on a night of betrayal against his own clan, demonstrated the deadliness of fighting without magic. Using poison, the assassin had proved the superiority of such mundane substances in a single, now legendary night of blood.

  Dester had heard that some initiates in some clans had raised hidden shrines to honour Rallick Nom, creating a kind of cult whose adherents employed secret gestures of mutual recognition within the Guild. Of course, Seba Krafar, the new Grand Master, had in one of his very first pronouncements outlawed the cult, and there had been a cull of sorts, with five suspected cult leaders greeting the dawn with smiling throats.

  Still, Dester had since heard enough hints to suggest that the cult was far from dead. It had just burrowed deeper.

  In truth, no one knew which poisons Rallick Nom had used, but Dester believed it was Moranth tralb, since even the smallest amount in the bloodstream brought unconsciousness, then a deeper coma that usually led to death. Larger quantities simply speeded up the process and were a sure path through Hood’s Gate.

  The big-arsed woman lumbered on.

  Four streets from K’rul’s Bar – if she was taking the route he believed she was taking – there’d be a long, narrow alley to walk up, the inside face of Third Tier Wall Armoury on the left, and on the right the high wall of the bath-house thick and solid with but a few scattered, small windows on upper floors, making the unlit passage dark.

  He would kill her there.

  Perched on a corner post’s finial at one end of the high wall, Chillbais stared with stony eyes on the tattered wilds beyond. Behind him was an overgrown garden with a shallow pond recently rebuilt but already unkempt, and toppled columns scattered about, bearded in moss. Before him, twisted trees and straggly branches with crumpled dark leaves dangling like insect carcasses, the ground beneath rumpled and matted with greasy grasses; a snaking path of tilted pavestones leading up to a squat, brooding house bearing no architectural similarity to any other edifice in all of Darujhistan.

  Light was rare from the cracks between those knotted shutters, and when it did show it was dull, desultory. The door never opened.

  Among his kin, Chillbais was a giant. Heavy as a badger, with sculpted muscles beneath the prickly hide. His folded wings were very nearly too small to lift him skyward, and each sweep of those leathery fans forced a grunt from the demon’s throat.

  This time would be worse than most. It had been months since he’d last moved, hidden as he was from prying eyes in the gloom of an overhanging branch from the ash tree in the estate garden at his back. But when he saw that flash of movement before him, that whispering flow of motion, out from the gnarled, black house and across the path, even as earth erupted in its wake to open a succession of hungry pits, even as roots writhed out seeking to ensnare this fugitive, Chillbais knew his vigil was at an end.

  The shadow slid out to crouch against the low wall of the Azath House, seemed to watch those roots snaking closer for a long moment, then rose and, flowing like liquid night over the stone wall, was gone.

  Grunting, Chillbais spread his creaking wings, shook the creases loose from the sheets of membrane between the rib-like fingers, then leapt forward, out from beneath the branch, catching what air he could, then flapping frenziedly – his grunts growing savage – until he slammed hard into the mulched ground.

  Spitting twigs and leaves, the demon scrambled back for the estate wall, hearing how those roots spun round, lashing out for him. Claws digging into mortar, Chillbais scrabbled back on to his original perch. Of course, there had been no real reason to fear. The roots never reached beyond the Azath’s own wall, and a glance back assured him—

  Squealing, Chillbais launched back into the air, this time out over the estate garden.

  Oh, no one ever liked demons!

  Cool air above the overgrown fountain, then, wings thudding hard, heaving upward, up into the night.

  A word, yes, for his master. A most extraordinary word. So unexpected, so incendiary, so fraught!

  Chillbais thumped his wings as hard as he could, an obese demon in the darkness above the blue, blue city.

  *

  Zechan Throw and Giddyn the Quick had found the perfect place for the ambush. Twenty paces down a narrow street two recessed doorways faced each other. Four drunks had staggered past a few moments earlier, and none had seen the assassins standing motionless in the inky darkness. And now that they were past and the way was clear . . . a simple step forward and blood would flow.

  The two targets approached. Both carried clay jugs and were weaving slightly. They seemed to be arguing, but not in a language Zechan understood. Malazan, likely. A quick glance to the left. The four drunks were just leaving the far end, plunging into a motley crowd of revellers.

  Zechan and Giddyn had followed the two out from K’rul’s Bar, watching on as they found a wine merchant, haggled over what the woman demanded for the jugs of wine, settled on a price, then set out on their return leg of the journey.

  Somewhere along the way they must have pulled the stoppers on the jugs, for now they were loud in their argument, the slightly taller one, who walked pigeon-toed and was blue-skinned – Zechan could just make him out from where he stood – pausing to lean against a wall as if moments from losing his supper.

  He soon righted himself, and it seemed the argument was suddenly over. Straightening, the taller one joined the other and, from the sounds of their boots in the rubbish, set out by his side.

  Simply perfect.

  Nothing messy, nothing at all messy. Zechan lived for nights like this.

  Dester moved quickly, his moccasins noiseless on the cobbles, rushing for the woman striding oblivious ahead of him. Twelve paces, eight, four—

  She spun, cloak whirling out.

  A blurred sliver of blued steel, flickering a slashing arc. Dester skidded, seeking to pull back from the path of that weapon – a longsword, Beru fend! – and something clipped his throat. He twisted and ducked down to his left, both daggers thrust out to ward her off should she seek to close.

  A longsword!
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  Heat was spilling down his neck, down his chest beneath his deerhide shirt. The alley seemed to waver before his eyes, darkness curling in. Dester Thrin staggered, flailing with his daggers. A boot or mailed fist slammed into the side of his head and there was more splashing on to the cobbles. He could no longer grip the daggers. He heard them skitter on stone.

  Blind, stunned, lying on the hard ground. It was cold.

  A strange lassitude filled his thoughts, spreading out, rising up, taking him away.

  Picker stood over the corpse. The red smear on the tip of her sword glistened, drawing her gaze, and she was reminded, oddly enough, of poppies after a rain. She grunted. The bastard had been quick, almost quick enough to evade her slash. Had he done so, she might have had some work to do. Still, unless the fool was skilled in throwing those puny daggers, she would have cut him down eventually.

  Pushing through Gadrobi crowds risked little more than cut-purses. As a people they were singularly gentle. In any case, it made such things as picking up someone trailing her that much easier – when that someone wasn’t Gadrobi, of course.

  The man dead at her feet was Daru. Might as well have worn a lantern on his hooded head, the way it bobbed above the crowd in her wake.

  Even so . . . she frowned down at him. You wasn’t no thug. Not with daggers like those.

  Hound’s Breath.

  Sheathing her sword and pulling her cloak about her once more, ensuring that it well hid the scabbarded weapon which, if discovered by a Watch, would see her in a cell with a damned huge fine to pay, Picker pushed the wrapped stack of flatbread tighter under her left arm, then set out once more.

  Blend, she decided, was in a lot of trouble.

  Zechan and Giddyn, in perfect unison, launched themselves out from the alcoves, daggers raised then thrusting down.

  A yelp from the taller one as Giddyn’s blades plunged deep. The Malazan’s knees buckled and vomit sprayed from his mouth as he sank down, the jug crashing to a rush of wine.

  Zechan’s own weapons punched through leather, edges grating along ribs. One for each lung. Tearing the daggers loose, the assassin stepped back to watch the red-haired one fall.

  A shortsword plunged into the side of Zechan’s neck.

  He was dead before he hit the cobbles.

  Giddyn, looming over the kneeling Malazan, looked up.

  Two hands closed round his head. One clamped tight over his mouth, and all at once his lungs were full of water. He was drowning. The hand tightened, fingers pinching his nostrils shut. Darkness rose within him, and the world slowly went away.

  Antsy snorted as he tugged his weapon free, then added a kick to the assassin’s face to punctuate its frozen expression of surprise.

  Bluepearl grinned across at him. ‘See the way I made the puke spray out? If that ain’t genius I don’t know what—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Antsy snapped. ‘These weren’t muggers looking for a free drink, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  Frowning, Bluepearl looked down at the body before him with the water leaking from its mouth and nose. The Napan ran a hand over his shaved pate. ‘Aye. But they was amateurs anyway. Hood, we saw those breath plumes from halfway down the street. Which stopped when those drunks crossed, telling us they wasn’t the target. Meaning—’

  ‘We were. Aye, and that’s my point.’

  ‘Let’s get back,’ Bluepearl said, suddenly nervous.

  Antsy tugged at his moustache, then nodded. ‘Work up that illusion again, Bluepearl. Us ten paces ahead.’

  ‘Easy, Sergeant—’

  ‘I ain’t no sergeant no more.’

  ‘Yeah? Then why you still barking orders?’

  By the time Picker arrived within sight of the front entrance to K’rul’s Bar, her rage was incandescent. She paused, scanned the area. Spotted someone leaning in shadows across from the bar’s door. Hood drawn up, hands hidden.

  Picker set off towards the figure.

  She was noticed with ten paces between them, and she saw the man straighten, saw the growing unease betrayed by a shift of those covered arms, the cloak rippling. A half-dozen celebrants careened between them, and as they passed Picker took the last stride needed to reach the man.

  Whatever he had been expecting – perhaps her accosting him with some loud accusation – it was clear that he was unprepared for the savage kick she delivered between his legs. As he was going down she stepped closer and slapped her right hand against the back of his head, adding momentum to the man’s collapse. When his forehead cracked against the cobbles there was a sickly crunch. The body began to spasm where it lay.

  A passer-by paused, peered down at the twitching body.

  ‘You!’ Picker snarled. ‘What’s your damned problem?’

  Surprise, then a shrug. ‘Nothing, sweetie. Served ‘im right, standin’ there like that. Say, would you marry me?’

  ‘Go away.’

  As the stranger ambled on, bemoaning his failure at love, Picker looked around, waiting to see if there was someone else bolting from some hidden place nearby. If it had already happened, then she had missed it. More likely, the unseen eyes watching all of this were peering down from a rooftop somewhere.

  The man on the ground had stopped twitching.

  Spinning round, she headed for the entrance to K’rul’s Bar.

  ‘Pick!’

  Two strides from the battered door, she turned, and saw Antsy and Bluepearl – lugging jugs of Saltoan wine – hurrying up to join her. Antsy’s expression was fierce. Bluepearl lagged half a step behind, eyes on the motionless body on the other side of the street, where a Gadrobi urchin was now busy stealing whatever she could find.

  ‘Get over here,’ Picker snapped, ‘both of you! Keep your eyes open.’

  ‘Shopping’s gettin’ murderous,’ Antsy said. ‘Bluepearl had us illusioned most of the way back, after we sniffed out an ambush—’

  With one last glare back out on to the street, Picker took them both by their arms and pulled them unceremoniously towards the door. ‘Inside, idiots.’

  Unbelievable, a night like this, making me so foul of temper I went and turned down the first decent marriage proposal I’ve had in twenty years.

  Blend was sitting in the place she sat in whenever she smelled trouble. A small table in shadows right beside the door, doing her blending thing, except this time her legs were stretched out, just enough to force a stumble from anyone coming inside.

  Stepping through the doorway, Picker gave those black boots a solid kick.

  ‘Ow, my ankle!’

  Picker dropped the stack of flatbread on to Blend’s lap.

  ‘Oof!’

  Antsy and Bluepearl pushed past. The ex-sergeant snorted. ‘Now there’s our scary minder at the door. “Ow, oof!” she says.’

  But Blend had already recovered and was unwrapping the flatbread.

  ‘You know, Blend,’ Picker said as she settled at the bar, ‘the old Rhivi hags who make those spit on the pan before they slap down the dough. Some ancient spirit blessing—’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Blend cut in, folding back the flaps of the wrapper. ‘The sizzle tells them the pan’s hot enough.’

  ‘Ain’t it just,’ Bluepearl muttered.

  Picker scowled, then nodded. ‘Aye. Let’s all head to our office, all of us – Blend, go find Mallet, too.’

  ‘Bad timing,’ Blend observed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Spindle taking that pilgrimage.’

  ‘Lucky for him.’

  Blend slowly rose and said round a mouthful of flatbread, ‘Duiker?’

  Picker hesitated, then said, ‘Ask him. If he wants, aye.’

  Blend slowly blinked. ‘You kill somebody tonight, Pick?’

  No answer was a good enough answer. Picker peered suspiciously at the small crowd in the bar, those too drunk to have reeled out into the street at the twelfth bell, as was the custom. Regulars one and all. That’ll do. Waving for the others to follow, Picker set out for the
stairs.

  At the far end of the main room, that damned bard was bleating on with one of the more obscure verses of Anomandaris, but nobody was listening.

  The three of them saw themselves as the new breed on Darujhistan’s Council. Shardan Lim was the thinnest and tallest, with a parched face and washed-out blue eyes. Hook-nosed, a lipless slash of a mouth perpetually turned down as if he could not restrain his contempt for the world. The muscles of his left wrist were twice the size of those of the right, criss-crossed with proudly displayed scars. He met Challice’s eyes like a man about to ask her husband if his own turn with her was imminent, and she felt that regard like the cold hand of possession round her throat. A moment later his bleached eyes slid away and there was the flicker of a half-smile as he reached for his goblet where it rested on the mantel.

  Standing opposite Shardan Lim, on the other side of the nearly dead fire, with long fingers caressing the ancient ground hammerstones mortared into the fireplace, was Hanut Orr. Plaything to half the noble women in the city, so long as they were married or otherwise divested of maidenhood, he did indeed present that most enticing combination of dangerous charm and dominating arrogance – traits that seduced otherwise intelligent women – and it was well known how he delighted in seeing his lovers crawl on their knees towards him, begging a morsel of his attention.

  Challice’s husband was sprawled in his favourite chair to Hanut Orr’s left, legs stretched out, looking thoughtfully into his goblet, the wine with its hue of blue blood slowly swirling as he tilted his hand in lazy circles.

  ‘Dear wife,’ he now said in his usual drawl, ‘has the balcony air revived you?’

  ‘Wine?’ asked Shardan Lim, brows lifting as if serving her was his life’s calling.

  Should a husband take umbrage with such barely constrained leering from his so-called friends? Gorlas seemed indifferent.

  ‘No thank you, Councillor Lim. I have just come to wish you all a good night. Gorlas, will you be much longer here?’