Toll the Hounds

by Steven Erikson

  All at once Coll and the fat man were back, both looking confused.

  ‘Sulty dear,’ sang out the fat man, and one of the serving wenches looked over – they all had themselves a quiet, nervous audience among the half-dozen others in the tavern, and so numerous sets of eyes watched as she headed over. She was just rounding the nearest table when the fat man said, ‘It would appear that Hanut Orr has met an untimely end – before we even arrived, alas for Coll’s sake. Best summon a guard—’

  She made a face. ‘What? Out there? In the damned streets? Sounds like ten thousand wolves have been let loose out there, Kruppe!’

  ‘Sweet Sulty, Kruppe assures you no harm will come to you! Kruppe assures, yes, and will warmly comfort too upon your triumphant return!’

  ‘Oh now that’s incentive,’ and she turned round and headed for the front door. And the man was close enough to hear her add under her breath, ‘Incentive to throw myself into the jaws of the first wolf I see . . .’

  But out she went.

  The guard with the loving family and the aching chest was at the intersection just on this side of the wall one street away from the Phoenix Inn – and hurrying with genuine alarm towards the sounds of destruction to the south (the other raging fire in the Estate District was not his jurisdiction) – when he heard someone shouting at him and so turned, lifting high his lantern.

  A young woman was waving frantically.

  He hesitated, and then flinched at a howl so loud and so close he expected to see a demon standing at his shoulder. He jogged towards the woman.

  ‘For Hood’s sake!’ he shouted. ‘Get yourself inside!’

  He saw her spin round and scamper for the entrance to the Phoenix Inn. As he drew closer a flash of motion from a facing alley mouth almost drew him round, but when he shot the bull’s eye in that direction, he saw no one. He hurried on, breathing hard as he climbed the steps and went inside.

  A short time and a tumble of words later, he followed Councillor Coll and Kruppe into the alley, where they gathered round the corpse of yet another councillor. Hanut Orr, apparently.

  Wincing at the tightness that was closing like a vice round his ribcage, the guard slowly squatted to examine the wounds. Only two blows – which didn’t sound like his man – but then, the look of those wounds . . . ‘I think he’s killed another one,’ he muttered. ‘Not long ago either.’ He looked up. ‘And you two saw nothing?’

  Coll shook his head.

  Kruppe – a man the guard had always regarded askance, with considerable suspicion, in fact – hesitated.

  ‘What? Speak, you damned thief.’

  ‘Thief? Aaii, such an insult! Kruppe was but observing with most sharp eye the nature of said wounds upon forehead and back of neck.’

  ‘That’s how I know it’s the same man as has been killing dozens over the last few months. Some kind of foreign weapon—’

  ‘Foreign? Not at all, Kruppe suggests. Not at all.’

  ‘Really? Do go on.’

  ‘Kruppe suggests, most vigilant and honourable guard, that ‘twas hands alone did this damage. Knuckles and no more, no less.’

  ‘No, that’s wrong. I’ve seen the marks a fist makes—’

  ‘But Kruppe did not say “fist”. Kruppe was being more precise. Knuckles, yes? As in knuckles unencumbered by fingers . . .’

  The guard frowned, and then looked once more at that bizarre elongated dent in Hanut Orr’s forehead. He suddenly straightened. ‘Knuckles . . . but no fingers. But . . . I know that man!’

  ‘Indeed?’ Kruppe beamed. ‘Best make haste then, friend, and beware on this night of all nights, do beware.’

  ‘What? Beware what – what are you talking about?’

  ‘Why, the Toll, friend. Beware the Toll. Now go quickly – we shall take this poor body inside, until the morning when proper arrangements are, er, arranged. Such a multitude of sorrows this night! Go, friend, hunt down your nemesis! This is the very night for such a thing!’

  Everything was pulsing in front of the guard’s eyes, and the pain had surged from his chest into his skull. He was finding it hard to so much as think. But . . . yes, he knew that man. Gods, what was his name?

  It would come to him, but for now he hurried down the alley, and out into yet another bizarrely empty street. The name would come to him, but he knew where the bastard lived, he knew that much and wasn’t that enough for now? It was.

  Throbbing, pounding pulses rocked the brain in his skull. Flashes of orange light, flushes of dry heat against his face – gods, he wasn’t feeling right, not right at all. There was an old cutter down the street from where he lived – after tonight, he should pay her a visit. Lances of agony along his limbs, but he wasn’t going to stop, not even for a rest.

  He had the killer. Finally. Nothing was going to get in his way.

  And so onward he stumbled, lantern swinging wildly.

  Gaz marched up to the door, pushed it open and halted, looking round. The stupid woman hadn’t even lit the hearth – where the fuck was she? He made his way across the single room, three strides in all, to the back door, which he kicked open.

  Sure enough, there she was, standing with her back to him, right there in front of that circle of flat stones she’d spent days and nights arranging and rearranging. As if she’d lost her mind, and the look in her eyes of late – well, they were in so much trouble now.

  ‘Thordy!’

  She didn’t even turn round, simply said, ‘Come over here, husband.’

  ‘Thordy, there’s trouble. I messed up. We messed up – we got to think – we got to get out of here, out of the city – we got to run—’

  ‘We’re not running,’ she said.

  He came up beside her. ‘Listen, you stupid woman—’ She casually raised an arm and slid something cold and biting across his throat. Gaz stared, reached up his battered, maimed hands, and felt hot blood streaming down from his neck. ‘Thordy?’ The word bubbled as it came out.

  Gaz fell to his knees, and she stepped up behind him and with a gentle push sent him sprawling face down on to the circle of flat stones.

  ‘You were a good soldier,’ she said. ‘Collecting up so many lives.’

  He was getting cold, icy cold. He tried to work his way back up, but there was no strength left in him, none at all.

  ‘And me,’ she went on, ‘I’ve been good too. The dreams – he made it all so simple, so obvious. I’ve been a good mason, husband, getting it all ready . . . for you. For him.’

  The ice filling Gaz seemed to suddenly reach in, as deep inside him as it was possible to go, and he felt something – something that was his, and his alone, something that called itself me – convulse and then shriek in terror and anguish as the cold devoured it, ate into it, and piece after piece of his life simply vanished, piece after piece after—

  Thordy dropped the knife and stepped back as Hood, the Lord of Death, High King of the House of the Slain, Embracer of the Fallen, began to physically manifest on the stone dais before her. Tall, swathed in rotting robes of muted green, brown, and black. The face was hidden but the eyes were dull slits faintly lit in the midst of blackness, as was the smeared gleam of yellow tusks.

  Hood now stood on the blood-splashed stones, in a decrepit garden in the district of Gadrobi, in the city of Darujhistan. Not a ghostly projection, not hidden behind veils of shielding powers, not even a spiritual visitation.

  No, this was Hood, the god.

  Here, now.

  And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo.

  The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets in the City of Blue Fire.

  The guard came on to the decrepit street facing the ramshackle house that was home to the serial murderer, but he could barely make it out through the pulsing waves of darkness that seemed to be closing in on all sides, faster and faster, as if he was witness to a savage, nightmarish compression of time, day hurtling into night into day and on an
d on. As if he was somehow rushing into his own old age, right up to his final mortal moment. A roaring sound filled his head, excruciating pain radiating out from his chest, burning with fire in his arms, the side of his neck. His jaws were clenched so tight he was crushing his own teeth, and every breath was agony.

  He made it halfway to the front door before falling to his knees, doubling up and sinking down on to his side, the lantern clunking as it struck the cobbles. And suddenly he had room for a thousand thoughts, all the time he could have wanted, now that he’d taken his last breath. So many things became clear, simple, acquiring a purity that lifted him clear of his body—

  And he saw, as he hovered above his corpse, that a figure had emerged from the killer’s house. His altered vision revealed every detail of that ancient, unhuman visage within the hood, the deep-etched lines, the ravaged map of countless centuries. Tusks rising from the lower jaw, chipped and worn, the tips ragged and splintered. And the eyes – so cold, so . . . haunted – all at once the guard knew this apparition.

  Hood. The Lord of Death had come for him.

  He watched as the god lifted his gaze, fixing him with those terrible eyes.

  And a voice spoke in his head, a heavy voice, like the grinding of massive stones, the sinking of mountains. ‘I have thought nothing of justice. For so long now. It is all one to me. Grief is tasteless, sorrow an empty sigh. Live an eternity in dust and ashes and then speak to me of justice.’

  To this the guard had nothing to say. He had been arguing with death night after night. He had been fighting all the way from the Phoenix Inn. Every damned step. He was past that now.

  ‘So,’ continued Hood, ‘here I stand. And the air surrounding me, the air rushing into my lungs, it lives. I cannot prevent what comes with my every step here in the mortal world. I cannot be other than what I am.’

  The guard was confused. Was the Lord of Death apologizing?

  ‘But this once, I shall have my way. I shall have my way.’ And he stepped forward, raising one withered hand – a hand, the guard saw, missing two fingers. ‘Your soul shines. It is bright. Blinding. So much honour, so much love. Compassion. In the cavern of loss you leave behind, your children will be less than all they could have been. They will curl round scars and the wounds will never quite heal, and they will learn to gnaw those scars, to lick, to drink deep. This will not do.’

  The guard convulsed, spinning down back into the corpse on the cobbles. He felt his heart lurch, and then pound with sudden ease, sudden, stunning vigour. He drew a deep breath, the air wondrous, cool, sweeping away the last vestige of pain – sweeping everything away.

  All that he had come to, in those last moments – that scintillating clarity of vision, the breathtaking understanding of everything – now sank beneath a familiar cloud, settling grey and thick, where every shape was but hinted at, where he was lost. As lost as he had been, as lost as any and every mortal soul, no matter how blustery its claims to certainty, to faith. And yet . . . and yet it was a warm cloud, shot through with precious things: his love for his wife, his children; his wonder at their lives, the changes that came to them day by day.

  He found he was weeping, even as he climbed to his feet. He turned to look at the Lord of Death, in truth not expecting to see the apparition which must surely come only to the dead and dying, and then cried out in shock.

  Hood looked solid, appallingly real, walking down the street, eastward, and it was as if the webs binding them then stretched, the fabric snapping, wisping off into the night, and with each stride that took the god farther away the guard felt his life returning, an awareness of breathtaking solidity – in this precise moment, and in every one that would follow.

  He turned away – and even that was easy – and settled his gaze upon the door, which hung open, and all that waited within was dark and rotted through with horror and madness.

  The guard did not hesitate.

  With this modest and humble man, with this courageous, honourable man, Hood saw true. And, for just this once, the Lord of Death had permitted himself to care.

  Mark this, a most significant moment, a most poignant gesture.

  Thordy heard boots on the warped floorboards of the back porch and she turned to see a city guardsman emerge from her house, out through the back door, holding a lantern in one hand.

  ‘He is dead,’ she said. ‘The one you have come here for. Gaz, my husband.’ She pointed with a blood-slick knife. ‘Here.’

  The guard walked closer, sliding back one of the shutters on the lantern and directing the shaft of light until it found and held on the motionless body lying on the stones.

  ‘He confessed,’ she said. ‘So I killed him, with my own hand. I killed this . . . monster.’

  The guardsman crouched down to study the corpse. He reached out and gently slipped one finger under the cuff of one of Gaz’s sleeves, and raised up the battered, fingerless hand. He sighed then, and slowly nodded.

  As he lowered the arm again and began straightening, Thordy said, ‘I understand there is a reward.’

  He looked across at her.

  She wasn’t sure what she saw in his expression. He might be horrified, or amused, or cynically drained of anything like surprise. But it didn’t matter much. She just wanted the money. She needed the money.

  Becoming, for a time, the mason of the Lord of the Slain entailed a fearsome responsibility. But she hadn’t seen a single bent copper for her troubles.

  The guardsman nodded. ‘There is.’

  She held up the kitchen knife.

  He might have flinched a bit, maybe, but what mattered now would be Thordy seeing him nod a second time.

  And after a moment, he did just that.

  A god walked the streets of Darujhistan. In itself, never a good thing. Only fools would happily, eagerly invite such a visitation, and such enthusiasm usually proved shortlived. That this particular god was the harvester of souls meant that, well, not only was his manifestation unwelcome, but his gift amounted to unmitigated slaughter, rippling out to overwhelm thousands of inhabitants in tenement blocks, in the clustered hovels of the Gadrobi District, in the Lakefront District – but no, such things cannot be glanced over with a mere shudder.

  Plunge then, courage collected, into this welter of lives. Open the mind to consider, cold or hot, all manner of judgement. Propriety is dispensed with, decency cast aside. This is the eye that does not blink, but is such steely regard an invitation to cruel indifference? To a hardened, compassionless aspect? Or will a sliver of honest empathy work its way beneath the armour of desensitized excess? When all is done, dare to weigh thine own harvest of feelings and consider this one challenge: if all was met with but a callous shrug, then, this round man invites, shift round such cruel, cold regard, and cast one last judgement. Upon thyself.

  But for now . . . witness.

  Skilles Naver was about to murder his family. He had been walking home from Gajjet’s Bar, belly filled with ale, only to have a dog the size of a horse step out in front of him. A blood-splashed muzzle, eyes burning with bestial fire, the huge flattened head swinging round in his direction.

  He had frozen in place. He had pissed himself, and then shat himself.

  A moment later a high wooden fence surrounding a vacant lot further up the street – where a whole family had died of some nasty fever a month earlier – suddenly collapsed and a second enormous dog appeared, this one bone white.

  Its arrival snatched the attention of the first beast, and in a surge of muscles the creature lunged straight for it.

  They collided like two runaway, laden wagons, the impact a concussion that staggered Skilles. Whimpering, he turned and ran.

  And ran.

  And now he was home, stinking like a slop pail, and his wife was but half packed – caught in the midst of a treacherous flight, stealing the boys, too. His boys. His little workers, who did everything Skilles told them to (and Beru fend if they didn’t or even talked back, the little shits) and the thought
of a life without them – without his perfect, private, very own slaves – lit Skilles into a white rage.

  His wife saw what was coming. She pushed the boys into the corridor and then turned to give up her own life. Besk the neighbour the door next over was collecting the boys for some kind of escape to who knew where. Well, Skilles would just have to hunt him down, wouldn’t he? It wasn’t as if puny rat-faced Surna was going to hold him back for long, was it?

  Just grab her, twist that scrawny neck and toss the waste of space to one side—

  He didn’t even see the knife, and all he felt of the murderous stab was a prick under his chin, as the thin blade shot up through his mouth, deflected inward by his upper palate, and sank three fingers deep straight into the base of his brain.

  Surna and her boys didn’t have to run after all.

  Kanz was nine years old and he loved teasing his sister who had a real temper, as Ma always said as she picked up pieces of broken crockery and bits of hated vegetables scattered all over the floor, and the best thing was prodding his sister in the ribs when she wasn’t looking, and she’d spin round, eyes flashing with fury and hate – and off he’d run, with her right on his heels, out into the corridor, pell-mell straight to the stairs and then down and round and down fast as he could go with her screeching behind him.

  Down and round and down and—

  —and he was flying through the air. He’d tripped, missed his grip on the rail, and the ground floor far below rushed up to meet him.

  ‘You two will be the death of each other!’ Ma always said. Zasperating! She said that too—

  He struck the floor. Game over.

  Sister’s quick temper went away and never returned after that night. And Ma never again voiced the word ‘zasperating’. Of course it did not occur to her that its sudden vanishing from her mind was because her little boy had taken it with him, the last word he’d thought. He’d taken it, as would a toddler a doll, or a blanket. For comfort in his dark new world.