Toll the Hounds

by Steven Erikson

  And left the realm of Dragnipur. The other Seguleh were doomed anyway, and though in this last battle they had each redeemed something of their shame in dying to a foreigner, that was no reason to fall at their sides.

  The Second did not stay long in the wake of the others as they thundered through unknown warrens, no, not long at all. For he had been summoned. Summoned, yes, by a weapon in need—

  Riding a seething storm of fiery winds, plunging through, his horse’s sheaves of armour clattering, its hoofs ringing sharp on cobbles, the Second saw what he sought, and he swept his hand down—

  ‘I’ll take that,’ laughed a hollow, metallic voice. And the lance was torn from Cutter’s hand. In an array of flapping tatters of hide, frayed straps and mangled buckles, the undead Seguleh who had, long ago, once given him the weapon, now readied the lance, even as the masked warrior charged straight towards the white Hounds.

  ‘Skinner!’ he roared. ‘I’m coming for you! But first, these guys . . .’

  Karsa Orlong sidestepped at the sudden arrival of some armoured warrior riding a monstrous, dead horse. Seeing the newcomer ride to meet the Hounds, he snarled and set off after him.

  The lance angled down on the left side and so the Toblakai went to the rider’s right, eyes fixing on a Hound that clearly intended an attack on the horseman’s unprotected side.

  Two beasts and two warriors all met at once.

  The rider’s lance drove into a Hound’s throat just beneath the jaw, surging upward through the base of the skull, severing the spinal cord on its way to obliterate the back of the animal’s brain. The serrated lance head erupted from the skull in an explosion of grey pulp, blood and bone shards.

  Karsa swung down, two-handed, as the other Hound arrived alongside the rider and reared to close jaws on the stranger’s right thigh. Flint blade sliced down through the spine, chopping halfway through a neck thick as a horse’s, before jamming – the Hound’s forward momentum, now pitching downward, dragged the weapon and Karsa with it as the animal slammed the cobbles.

  At that instant the rider’s Jaghut horse collided chest to chest with a third hound. Bones shattered. The impact sent the rider over his horse’s head, dragging his lance free as he went. He struck and rolled off the back of the Hound – which seemed stunned, as the undead horse stumbled back.

  Pulled down on to his knees, Karsa ducked the snapping attack of another Hound – and then the beast was past, as were all the others. The Toblakai rose, took two quick strides and thrust his sword into the chest of the dazed third Hound. Howling in pain, it staggered away from Karsa’s blade, blood fountaining out in the path of the withdrawing sword. The stranger had recovered and he now sank the lance into the gut of the writhing animal, the lance head tearing messily through soft tissue, fluids spilling down.

  Something flashed in the eye-holes of the twin-scarred mask. ‘Well done, Toblakai! Now let’s chase down the others!’

  The two warriors swung round.

  Cutter stared as seven Hounds swept round Karsa and the Seguleh. Now he didn’t even hold a lance – dammit – and he unsheathed a pair of knives as one of the beasts made straight for him.

  A hand grasped the back of his shirt and yanked him back. Yelling in alarm, Cutter stumbled into someone’s short, brawny arms. He caught a momentary glimpse of a weathered face, eyes bulging, red moustache twitching beneath a bulbous nose—

  Do I know this man?

  And the one who had thrown him clear now lumbered forward, lifting an enormous two-handed axe. Barathol—

  ‘Wrong place for us!’ growled the man holding Cutter, and they began backing up.

  Barathol recognized this beast – the one Chaur had tangled with, the one that had broken his friend’s skull. He almost sang his joy as he launched himself into its path, axe sweeping in a savage diagonal arc, low to high, as the Hound arrived, snarling, monstrous—

  The axe edge bit deep into the beast’s lower jaw – another single instant’s delay and he would have caught its neck. As it was, the blow hammered the Hound’s head to one side.

  The beast’s chest struck Barathol.

  As if he’d been standing in the path of a bronze-sheathed battering ram, he was flung back, cartwheeling through the air, and was unconscious before he landed, fifteen paces behind the body of Anomander Rake.

  The Hound had skidded, stumbled, wagging its head – its right mandible was broken, a row of jagged molars jutting out almost horizontal, blood splashing down.

  For this battle, the beast was finished.

  In the moment that Karsa and the stranger whirled round, a shadow swept over them, and both flinched down in the midst of a sudden wind, reeking of rot, gusting past—

  Tips of its wings clattering along the facings of buildings to either side, a dragon sailed above the street, talons striking like vipers. Each one closing round a Hound in a crushing, puncturing embrace, lifting the screaming animals into the air. The dragon’s head snapped down, jaws engulfing another—

  And then the dragon thundered its wings and lifted skyward once more, carrying away three Hounds.

  The creature’s attack had lasted but a handful of heartbeats, in the moment that Cutter was dragged back into Antsy’s arms – the Falari half carrying him in his charge towards the door of the shopfront to the right – and Barathol, his gaze fixed solely upon the hated Hound attacking him, swung his axe.

  These three did not even see the dragon.

  Samar Dev stared wide-eyed at the dragon as it heaved back into the sky with its three howling, snarling victims.

  She was crouched over the motionless form of Traveller, Dassem Ultor, wielder of Vengeance, slayer of the Son of Darkness, who now lifted a sorrow-wracked visage, bleak, broken – and then reached out and grasped her, tugged her close.

  ‘Not my choice! Do not blame me, woman! Do you hear? Do not!’

  Then his eyes widened and he dragged her down on to the cobbles, covered her with his own body.

  As two behemoths collided not three paces distant.

  A white Hound.

  And a bear, a god, a beast forgotten in the passing of the world.

  It had arrived a moment after the Hound, and its massive forearms wrapped round in a crushing embrace, lifting the Hound into the air – and clear of Samar Dev and Dassem – before both creatures slammed into and through the building’s front wall.

  Rubble crashed down, tumbling chunks of masonry striking Dassem’s broad back as he pulled himself and Samar away from the collapsing façade. Somewhere within that building, bear and Hound fought in a frenzy.

  Leaving, now, two Hounds of Light, unopposed, and they reached the corpse of Anomander Rake. Jaws closed about a thigh and his body was dragged upward. The second beast circled, as if contemplating its own bite – but the sword still lodged in the Tiste Andii’s skull was pitching about as the first animal sought to carry away its prize, and wise caution kept it back.

  The Seguleh threw his lance from fifteen paces away. The weapon sank into the side of the circling Hound, knocking it down – to be up again in an instant, snarling and snapping at the jutting shaft.

  Karsa, whose longer strides had sent him ahead of the Second, voiced a Teblor battle cry – an ancient one, heard only when the elders spun their tales of ancient heroes – and the Hound gripping Rake’s corpse flinched at the sound.

  Releasing its hold on that torn, gashed leg, it lunged towards the attacking Toblakai.

  Two javelins struck the animal from its left. Neither lodged, but it was enough to sting its attention, and the Hound’s head pitched round to confront the new attackers.

  Two young Teblor women stood on the other side of the avenue, each calmly readying another javelin in her atlatl. Between them stood a large, mangy dog, tensed, fangs bared, its growl so low it might as well have been coming up from the earth below.

  The Hound hesitated.

  Karsa charged towards it, blade whistling through the air—

  The beast bro
ke and ran – and the Toblakai’s sword sliced off its stubby tail and nothing else.

  The Hound howled.

  Shifting round, Karsa advanced on the other animal – it had dragged the lance loose and now it too was fleeing, leaving a trail of blood.

  The Seguleh reclaimed his gore-smeared weapon.

  Karsa hesitated, and then he moved to stand over the body of Anomander Rake. ‘They are beaten,’ he said.

  The masked face swung round. Dead eyes in rimmed slits regarded him. ‘It has been a long time since I last heard that war cry, Toblakai. Pray,’ the warrior added, ‘I never hear it again!’

  Karsa’s attention, however, was drawn to the Teblor women, and the dog that now advanced, its own stubbed tail wagging.

  Staring at the animal, watching its limping approach, Karsa Orlong struggled against a sob. He had sent this dog home. Half dead, fevered and weak from blood loss, it had set out – so long ago now, so long ago. He looked up at the Teblor girls, neither of whom spoke. It was difficult to see through the tears – did he know these two? No, they looked too young.

  They looked . . .

  Down the side street, the five Hounds of Shadow had been driven back, unable to hold their ground against the combined sorceries of Spite and Envy. The magic slashed their hides. Blood sprayed from their snouts. And on all sides, forces sought to crush them down, destroy them utterly.

  Writhing, battered, they fell back, step by step.

  And the Daughters of Draconus drew ever closer to their prize.

  Their father’s sword.

  A birthright long denied them. Of course, both Envy and Spite understood the value of patience. Patience, yes, in the fruition of their desires, their needs.

  The Hounds could not match them, not in power, nor in savage will.

  The long wait was almost over.

  The sisters barely registered the quiet arrival of a carriage well behind the Hounds. Alas, the same could not be said for the one who stepped out from it and swung strangely bestial eyes towards them.

  That steady, deadly regard reached through indeed.

  They halted their advance. Sorceries died away. The Hounds, shedding blood that steamed in the dawn’s light, limped back in the direction of the fallen wielder of Dragnipur.

  Envy and Spite hesitated. Desires were stuffed screaming back into their tiny lockboxes. Plans hastily, bitterly readjusted. Patience . . . ah, patience, yes, awakened once more.

  Oh well, maybe next time.

  The vicious battle within the shell of the mostly demolished building had ended. Heart fluttering with fear, Samar Dev cautiously approached. She worked her way over the rubble and splintered crossbeams, edged past an inner wall that had remained mostly intact, and looked then upon the two motionless leviathans.

  A faint cry rose from her. Awkwardly, she made her way closer, and a moment later found herself half sitting, half slumped against a fragmented slab of plastered wall, staring down at the dying bear’s torn and shredded head.

  The Hound was gasping as well, its back end buried beneath the giant bear, red foam bubbling from its nostrils, each breath shallower and wetter than the one before, until finally, with a single, barely audible sigh, it died.

  Samar Dev’s attention returned to the god that had so haunted her, ever looming, ever testing the air . . . seeking . . . what? ‘What?’ she asked it now in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘What did you want?’

  The beast’s one remaining eye seemed to shift slightly inside its ring of red. In it, she saw only pain. And loss.

  The witch drew out her knife. Was this the thing to do? Should she not simply let it go? Let it leave this unjust, heartless existence? The last of its kind. Forgotten by all . . .

  Well, I will not forget you, my friend.

  She reached down with the knife, and slipped the blade into the pool of blood beneath the bear’s head. And she whispered words of binding, repeating them over and over again, until at last the light of life departed the god’s eye.

  Clutching two Hounds with a third one writhing in his mouth, Tulas Shorn could do little more than shake the beasts half senseless as the dragon climbed ever higher above the mountains north of Lake Azure. Of course, he could do one more thing. He could drop them from a great height.

  Which he did. With immense satisfaction.

  ‘Wait! Wait! Stop it! Stop!’

  Iskaral Pust climbed free of the ruckus – the mound of thrashing, snarling, spitting and grunting bhokarala, the mass of tangled, torn hair and filthy robes and prickly toes that was his wife, and he glared round.

  ‘You idiots! He isn’t even here any more! Gah, it’s too late! Gah! That odious, slimy, putrid lump of red-vested dung! No, get that away from me, ape.’ He leapt to his feet. His mule stood alone. ‘What good are you?’ he accused the beast, raising a fist.

  Mogora climbed upright, adjusting her clothes. She then stuck out her tongue, which seemed to be made entirely of spiders.

  Seeing this, Iskaral Pust gagged. ‘Gods! No wonder you can do what you do!’

  She cackled. ‘And oh how you beg for more!’

  ‘Aagh! If I’d known, I’d have begged for something else!’

  ‘Oh, what would you have begged for, sweetie?’

  ‘A knife, so I could cut my own throat. Look at me. I’m covered in bites!’

  ‘They got sharp teeth, all right, them bhokarala—’

  ‘Not them, month-old cream puff. These are spider bites!’

  ‘You deserve even worse! Did you drug her senseless? There’s no other way she’d agree to—’

  ‘Power! I have power! It’s irresistible, everybody knows that! A man can look like a slug! His hair can stick out like a bhederin’s tongue! He can be knee-high and perfectly proportioned – he can stink, he can eat his own earwax, none of it matters! If he has power!’

  ‘Well, that’s what’s wrong with the world, then. It’s why ugly people don’t just die out.’ And then she smiled. ‘It’s why you and me, we’re made for each other! Let’s have babies, hundreds of babies!’

  Iskaral Pust ran to his mule, scrabbled aboard, and fled for his life.

  The mule walked, seemingly unmindful of the rider thrashing and kicking about on its back, and at a leisurely saunter, Mogora kept pace.

  The bhokarala, which had been cooing and grooming in a reconciliatory love fest, now flapped up into the air, circling over their god’s head like gnats round the sweetest heap of dung ever beheld.

  Approaching thunder startled Picker from her reverie within the strange cave, and she stared upon the carved rock wall, eyes widening to see the image of the carriage blurring as if in motion.

  If the monstrosity was indeed pounding straight for her, moments from exploding into the cavern, then she would be trampled, for there was nowhere to go in the hope of evading those rearing horses and the pitching carriage behind them.

  An absurd way for her soul to die—

  The apparition arrived in a storm of infernal wind, yet it emerged from the wall ghostly, almost transparent, and she felt the beasts and the conveyance tear through her – a momentary glimpse of a manic driver, eyes wide and staring, both legs jutting out straight and splayed and apparently splinted. And still others, on the carriage roof and tossing about on the ends of straps from the sides, expressions stunned and jolted. All of this, sweeping through her, and past—

  And a rider lunged into view directly before her, sawing the reins – and this man and his mount were real, solid. Sparks spat out from skidding hoofs, the horse’s eyeless head lifting. Picker staggered back in alarm.

  Damned corpses! She stared up at the rider, and then swore. ‘I know you!’

  The one-eyed man, enwreathed in the stench of death, settled his horse and looked down upon her. And then he said, ‘I am Hood’s Herald now, Corporal Picker.’

  ‘Oh. Is that a promotion?’

  ‘No, a damned sentence, and you’re not the only one I need to visit, so enough of the sardonic
shit and listen to me—’

  She bridled. ‘Why? What am I doing here? What’s Hood want with me that he ain’t already got? Hey, take a message back to him! I want to—’

  ‘I cannot, Picker. Hood is dead.’

  ‘He’s what?’

  ‘The Lord of Death no longer exists. Gone. For ever more. Listen, I ride to the gods of war. Do you understand, torc-bearer? I ride to all the gods of war.’

  Torc-bearer? She sagged. ‘Ah, shit.’

  Toc the Younger spoke then, and told her all she needed to know.

  When he was done, she stared, the blood drained from her face, and watched as he gathered the reins once more and prepared to leave.

  ‘Wait!’ she demanded. ‘I need to get out of here! How do I do that, Toc?’

  The dead eye fixed upon her one last time. He pointed at the gourds resting on the stone floor to either side of Picker. ‘Drink. Live up to your name. Pick one, Picker.’

  ‘Are you mad? You just told me where that blood’s come from!’

  ‘Drink, and remember all that I have told you.’

  And then he was gone.

  Remember, yes, she would do that. ‘Find the Toblakai. Find the killer and remind him . . . remind him, do you understand me? Then, torc-bearer, lead him to war.

  ‘Lead him to war . . .’

  There had been more, much more. None of it anything she could hope to forget. ‘All I wanted to do was retire.’

  Cursing under her breath, she walked over to the nearest gourd, crouched down before it. Drink. It’s blood, dammit!

  Drink.

  To stand in the heart of Dragnipur, to stand above the very Gate of Darkness, this was, for Anomander Rake, a most final act. Perhaps it was desperation. Or a sacrifice beyond all mortal measure.

  A weapon named Vengeance, or a weapon named Grief – either way, where he had been delivered by that sword was a world of his own making. And all the choices that might have been were as dust on the bleak trail of his life.

  He was the Son of Darkness. His people were lost. There was, for him, room to grieve, here at the end of things, and he could finally turn away, as his mother had done so long ago. Turn away from his children. As every father must one day do, in that final moment that was death. The notion of forgiveness did not even occur to him, as he stood on the mound of moaning, tattooed bodies.