Toll the Hounds

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Oh, do be quiet, Second,’ sighed the Lord of Death. ‘Other tasks await you – and you will not rue them, I am sure. Iskar Jarak, will you command in the Knight’s stead? At the head of the spear, driving into the very heart of the enemy?’

  The one so addressed had the look of a veteran among veterans. Grey-bearded, scarred, wearing threadbare, faded colours over his plain chain hauberk. Grey and magenta, bordered in black. At Hood’s request he faced the Jaghut. ‘We will harden the point,’ he said. ‘With Malazans. At the very tip, my Bridgeburners. Dujek on my left flank, Bult on the right with the Seventh and his Wickans.’ He then twisted in the saddle to regard another soldier. ‘Brukhalian and his Grey Swords to the right of Bult.’

  Brukhalian nodded. ‘I find honour in that, Iskar Jarak.’

  ‘Skamar Ara, your Jacuruku legions to the left of Dujek. Hood, listen well. Beyond the spear, so many of the rest are so much dross. Their will is weakened by countless millennia – they will march into the face of the enemy, but they will not last.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hood.

  ‘Just so you know,’ said Iskar Jarak. ‘Just so you know.’

  ‘Return now to your forces,’ Hood commanded. ‘Iskar Jarak, send to me the one-eyed outrider. And Bult, find my Soldier, the one once named Baudin. There are things still to do.’

  Draconus watched as the commanders rode off, with only the Seguleh remaining, swords sheathed once more.

  ‘Hood,’ he said, ‘what is happening here? You will ask the dead to fight for us? They will fail. They will earn oblivion and naught else. They cannot succeed, Hood. The chaos pursuing Dragnipur will not be denied – do you understand what I’m telling you?’

  The Knight snorted. ‘It is you who does not understand, Elder. Long before he was Lord of the Fallen, he was Jaghut.

  Lords of the Last Stands, hah! Sentinels of the Sundered Keeps. Devourers of the Forlorn Hope. You, Elder, who stood time and again against the Tiste Andii, the Tiste Edur – you, who walked the ashes of Kharkanas itself – understand me. The dour Tiste Andii and the suicidal Edur, they are as nothing to the miserable madness of the Jaghut!’

  During this tirade, Hood continued to stare at the wagon, at its towering, tottering heap of bodies. And then the Lord of the Dead spoke. ‘I often wondered what it looked like, this Hold creaking on its wooden wheels . . . a pathetic thing, really. Crude, clumsy.’ He faced Draconus, rotted skin curling back from the tusks. ‘Now, turn it around.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ask what the dead face

  Snatching the curtain aside These stony tracks into blind worlds

  Where to grope is to recall

  All the precious jewels of life

  Ask what the dead see

  In that last backward glance

  These fetish strings knots left untied

  Where every sinew strains

  To reach and touch once more

  Ask what the dead know

  When knowing means nothing

  Arms full and heaped with baubles

  As if to build a home anew

  In places we’ve never been

  Ask but the dead do not answer

  Behind the veil of salty rain

  Skirl now amid the rotted leavings

  When the worms fall away

  To that wealth of silence

  The Lost Treasures of Indaros

  Fisher kel Tath

  Eyes rolling white, the ox ran for its life. Cart skidding and bouncing, tilting on one wild wheel as the moaning beast hurtled round a corner and raced down a cobbled street.

  Even the gods could not reach through that thick-boned pate of skull, down into the tender knot of terror in its murky brain. Once prodded awake, incessant need blurred the world beyond, reducing all to a narrow tunnel with salvation at the far, far end. Why, who could comprehend such extremity? Not mortal kin, much less a god with its eternally bemused brow – to regard such fitful interludes, blank-eyed and mind rushing past like a flash flood, what would be the value of that, after all?

  The beast is what it is. Four-legged, two-legged. Panic will use as many limbs as are available to it, and a few more besides. Panic will ride a wheeled cart, and thunder on dung-smeared hoofs. Panic will scrabble up the very walls as one horrendous Hound after another slinks past.

  The night air stinks and that stink fills the nostrils with all the frenzied flags of a ship floundering on shoals. Smoke and blood, bile and piss. But, mostly, blood.

  And then there were the screams. Ringing out everywhere, so many of them cutting off in mid-shriek, or, even more chilling, in strangled gurgle. Mothers never before heard such a multitude of beseeching calls! And who could say if the ox was not bellowing for its own, for that sweet teat, the massive hulk looming overhead, with all its sure scents and briny warmth? Alas, the beast’s mam was long since sent off to pull the great cart beyond the veil, and even could she come lumbering back at the desperate call of her get, what might she achieve in the face of a Hound?

  No, solitary flight this must remain. For each and all. Ox, horse, dog, cat, mouse and rat, lizard and gnat. And people of all sorts. Old men with limps, old men who never limped in their lives but did so now. Women of all ages, sizes and dispositions, who would have limped could it have earned the necessary sympathy. Yet when even the rooftops hold no succour, why bother riding this bouncing cart of headlong panic? Best to simply flop down in abject surrender, with but a few tugs to rearrange the lie of one’s dress or whatnot. Let the men soil themselves in their terror – they never washed enough as it was.

  Nobles fled ignobly, the fallen fairly flew as if on winged feet, thieves blustered and bullies whined and wheedled, guards in their blind fear observed nothing and soldiers fled every clash of iron, tooth and claw. Fools with nothing stood their ground. Gamblers danced and whores bluffed – and inside a Temple of Shadow deliciously feminine acolytes squealed and darted from the path of a screaming Magus atop his charging mule, straight through the grand altar room, censers flying with tails of uncoiling serpentine smoke and heads with glowing coal eyes in myriad profusion. In the mule’s careering wake, winged bhokarala shrieked and flitted about flinging gobs of snot and segmented cones of hairy dung at every fleeing female, while spiders swarmed up from the old long-forgotten blood drain at the base of the altar stone, a veritable carpet of seething jerky stick-legs, glistening abdomens, patterned thoraxes and beady Dal Honese eyes by the thousands, nay tens of thousands! And was it any wonder the Magus and the mule pelted right across the chamber, the doors at the far end exploding open as if of their own accord?

  Even as the High Priestess – stumbling out from behind a curtain like a woman tossed from the throes of manic lovemaking, with stubble-rubbed chin and puffy lips high and low and breasts all awry and great molten swells of pale flesh swaying to and fro – plunging, yes, into the midst of that crawling black carpet of spite and venom, and so no wonder she began a dance riotous in its frenzy but let’s face it, even Mogora was too shocked, too disbelieving, to sink a forest of fangs into such sweet meat – and the bhokarala swooped down to scoop up handfuls of yummy spiders and crunch crunch into their maws and if spiders could scream, why, they did so then, even as they foamed in swirling retreat back down the drain.

  Mule and Magus drum-rolled down the colonnade and out through another shattered set of doors, out into the moody alleyway with its huddled mass of hiding refugees, who now scattered at the arrival of this dread apparition, and the squall of bhokarala swirling out behind it.

  Now, wing swift as a burning moth across the city, back to the ox as it lumbered along in heart-pounding, chest-heaving exhaustion – pursued by an angry cart and who knew what else – and found itself fast approaching the collapsed ruin of an enormous building of some sort . . .

  Serendipity serves as the quaintest description of the fickle mayhem delivered by the Hounds of Shadow. Shortly following the breach of the gate, Baran pelted westward in pursuit of Pallid, as that
bone-white beast broke from the pack with untoward designs in another part of the stricken city.

  Pallid was unaware that it was being hunted as it discovered a dozen city guards rushing down the centre of the street, heading for the destroyed gate. The monstrous beast lunged into their midst, lashing out with slavering jaws. Armour collapsed, limbs were torn away, weapons spun through the air. Screams erupted in a welter of slaughter.

  Even as Pallid crushed in its jaws the head of the last guard, Baran arrived in an avalanche. The impact boomed like thunder as Pallid was struck in the side, the caged bell of its chest reverberating as both beasts skidded and then struck the wall of a large building.

  The solid, fortified entranceway was punched inward. Stone shards tore through the three people unlucky enough to be stationed in the front room. The huge blocks framing the doors tumbled down, bouncing like knuckle bones, crushing one of the wounded men before he could even scream. The remaining two, lacerated and spilling blood, were pushed back by the broad front desk, and pinned against the far wall. Both died within moments, bones and organs macerated.

  Rolling, snapping and growling, the two Hounds shattered that desk, and the grillework attached to it sailed upward to crack on the ceiling, which had already begun sagging as its supports and braces gave way. With terrible groans, the entire front of the structure dragged itself down, and now screams rose through the dust, muted and pitiful.

  Another wall collapsed under the impact of the beasts, and beyond it was a corridor and bars lining cells, and two more guards who sought to flee down the aisle’s length – but this entire room was coming down, the iron bars snapping out from their frames, locks shattering. Prisoners vanished beneath splintered wooden beams, plaster and bricks.

  Rearing back on to its hind legs, knocked over by another charge from Baran, Pallid smashed into one cell. The prisoner within it pitched down and rolled up against one side as the Hounds, locked once more, knocked down the back wall and, kicking and snarling, rolled into the space beyond – an alleyway already half filled with falling masonry as the entire gaol broke apart.

  The lone prisoner scrambled back to his feet and rushed into the Hounds’ wake—

  But not in time, as the floor above dropped down to fill the cell.

  In the alley Pallid had managed to close its jaws about Baran’s shoulder, and with a savage surge sent the beast wheeling through the air to crunch into what remained of the wall on that side – and this too folded inward beneath the impact of Baran’s thrashing weight.

  From the wreckage of the first cell, a section of plaster and mortared brick lifted up, and as it tumbled back the prisoner – covered in dust, bruised and bleeding – began to climb free.

  Pallid, hearing these sounds – the gasps and coughs, the scrambling – wheeled round, eyes blazing.

  And Barathol paused, legs still pinned, and stared into those infernal orbs, and knew that they were the last things he would ever see.

  Pallid gathered its legs for its charge. Its smeared, torn lips stretched back to reveal its massive fangs, and then it sprang forward—

  Even as a figure hurtled bodily into its side, striking it low, beneath its right shoulder, hard enough to twist the animal round as it flew in mid-air.

  Barathol flung himself back and as much to one side as he could manage, as the Hound’s crimson-splashed head pounded side-on into the rubble, its flailing body following.

  Picking himself up from the ground, Chaur looked over at Barathol, and then showed him a bright red smile, even as he dragged free the huge war-axe he had collected from the smithy – Barathol’s very own weapon. As Pallid clambered back upright, Chaur threw the axe in Barathol’s direction, and then picked up a chunk of stone.

  Barathol shrieked, desperate to tear himself free, as the white Hound, snarling, spun to face Chaur with fury incandescent in its eyes.

  From the rubble farther down the alley, Baran was working free, but it would not arrive in time. Not for Chaur.

  Kicking, heedless of tearing flesh, Barathol fought on.

  Chaur threw his stone the instant the white Hound charged.

  It struck the beast’s snout dead-on.

  A yelp of agony, and then the beast’s momentum slammed it into Chaur, sent him flying across the alley to crunch sickeningly against the opposite wall. When he fell to the grimy cobbles, he did not move.

  Barathol dragged his legs loose, leaving trails of blood and pieces of meat. He rolled, grasping hold of the axe handle, and then heaved himself to his feet.

  Pallid’s huge head turned.

  Baran broke clear into the alley.

  The white Hound looked over, and, with another snarl, the beast pivoted round and fled.

  A moment later Baran flashed past.

  Barathol sagged back on wobbly legs. Drawing in one cold breath after another, he turned his gaze once more upon the motionless body opposite. With a sob, he dragged himself to his feet and stumbled over.

  In the strange, mysterious places within the brain, places that knew of themselves as Chaur, a black flood was seeping in, and one by one those places began to drown. Fitful sparks ebbed, and once gone did not light again. His state of unconsciousness slipped into something deeper, a kind of protective oblivion that mercifully hid from Chaur the fact that he was dying.

  His expression was serene, save for the slow sag along one side of his face, and when Barathol rolled back his eyelids, the pupil of one eye was vastly dilated.

  Weeping, the blacksmith pulled Chaur’s head and upper body on to his thighs. The rest of the world, the explosions, the screams, the thunder of battle, all fell away, and it was some time before Barathol realized that someone was clambering out of the rubble that was the gaol. A staccato cascade of curses in Falari, Malazan, Dobri and Daru. Blinking, the blacksmith lifted his gaze.

  ‘Antsy – here, please, I need your help! Please. He’s hurt.’

  The ex-Bridgeburner was covered in dust but otherwise unscathed. ‘I lost my damned sword. I lost my damned crossbow. I lost my damned sharpers. I lost my—’ ‘Antsy! Hood’s breath, please help me – we need to find a healer. High Denul – there must be one in the city. There must be!’

  ‘Well, there’s Mallet, but he’s – shit, he’s dead. I forgot. Can’t believe I forgot.’ Antsy crouched down and studied Chaur for a moment, and then he shook his head. ‘He’s done for, Barathol. Cracked skull, bleeding into his brain – you can always tell, when one side of the face goes—’

  ‘I know all that, damn you. We need a healer! Think, Antsy – there must be someone.’

  ‘Maybe, but not close – we got to cross half the city, Barathol, and with them Hounds—’

  ‘Never mind the Hounds.’ The blacksmith gathered Chaur up into his arms and straightened.

  Antsy stared. ‘You can’t carry him—’

  ‘Then help me!’

  ‘I’m trying! Let me think.’

  At that moment they both heard the clumping of hoofs, the clack of wooden wheels on cobbles. And they turned to the alley mouth.

  Behold, the ox. Too weary to run. Even the cart in its wake clumped in exhaustion. Stolid legs trembled. Mucus slathered down in a gleaming sheet that dragged dusty tendrils between the beast’s front hoofs. The painful clarity of panic was fading, dulling its eyes once more, and when the two man-things arrived and set down a third body on the bed of the cart, why, this was old business as far as the ox was concerned. At last, the world had recovered its sanity. There were tasks to be done, journeys to complete. Salvation sweeter than mam’s milk.

  Tired but content, the beast fell in step beside the manthings.

  The two cousins stood on the rooftop, looking out over the city. Conflagrations lit the night sky. A section of the Gadrobi District was aflame, with geysers of burning gas spouting high into the air. A short time earlier a strange atmospheric pressure had descended, driving down the fires – nothing was actually spreading, as far as could be determined, and the detonations had g
rown more infrequent. Even so, there was no one fighting the flames, which was, all things considered, hardly surprising.

  In the courtyard below, Studious Lock was fussing about over the fallen compound guards, both of whom had been dragged out on to pallets. Miraculously, both still lived, although, having survived the assassins, there remained the grave chance that they would not survive Studlock’s ministrations. Scorch and Leff had set themselves the task of patrolling outside the estate, street by alley by street by alley, round and round, crossbows at the ready and in states of high excitement.

  ‘These Hounds,’ said Rallick, ‘are most unwelcome.’

  ‘It seems walls don’t stop them either. Any idea why they’re here?’

  When Rallick did not reply, Torvald glanced over and saw that his cousin was staring up at the shattered moon.

  Torvald did not follow his gaze. That mess unnerved him. Would those spinning chunks now begin raining down? Rallick had noted earlier that most of the fragments seemed to be heading the other way, growing ever smaller. There was another moon that arced a slower path that seemed to suggest it was farther away, and while it appeared tiny its size was in fact unknown. For all anyone knew, it might be another world as big as this one, and maybe now it was doomed to a rain of death. Anyway, Torvald didn’t much like thinking about it.

  ‘Rallick—’

  ‘Never mind, Tor. I want you to stay here, within the walls. I doubt there will be any trouble – the Mistress has reawakened her wards.’

  ‘Tiserra—’

  ‘Is a clever woman, and a witch besides. She’ll be fine, and mostly will be worrying about you. Stay here, cousin, until the dawn.’

  ‘What about you?’

  Rallick turned about then, and a moment later Torvald sensed that someone else had joined them, and he too swung round.

  Vorcan stood, wrapped in a thick grey cloak. ‘The High Alchemist,’ she said to Rallick, ‘suggested we be close by . . . in case we are needed. The time, I believe, has come.’