Toll the Hounds

  The tall, undead monstrosity filled the doorway. Empty, shadow-drowned eye sockets regarded them – or not; it was impossible to tell.

  Antsy shifted from one foot to the other. ‘You busy, Raest? We need to make use of the hallway floor behind you—’

  ‘Oh yes, I am very busy.’

  The Falari blinked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Dust breeds. Cobwebs thicken. Candle wax stains precious surfaces. What do you want?’

  Antsy glanced back at Barathol. ‘Oh, a corpse with a sense of humour, what do you know? And surprise, it’s so droll.’ He faced the Jaghut again and smiled. ‘In case you ain’t noticed, the whole city has gone insane – that’s why I figured you might be suffering some—’

  ‘I am sorry,’ cut in Raest, ‘is something happening?’

  Antsy’s eyes bulged slightly. ‘The Hounds of Shadow are loose!’

  Raest leaned forward as if to scan the vicinity, and then settled back once more. ‘Not in my yard.’

  Antsy clawed through his hair. ‘Trust me, then, it’s a bad night – now, if you’d just step back—’

  ‘Although, come to think of it, I did have a visitor earlier this evening.’

  ‘What? Oh, well, I’m happy for you, but—’ Raest lifted one desiccated hand and pointed.

  Antsy and Barathol turned. And there, in the yard, there was a fresh mound of raw earth, steaming. Vines were visibly snaking over it. ‘Gods below,’ the Falari whispered, making a warding gesture with one hand.

  ‘A T’lan Imass with odd legs,’ said Raest. ‘It seemed to harbour some dislike towards me.’ The Jaghut paused. ‘I can’t imagine why.’

  Antsy grunted. ‘It should’ve stayed on the path.’

  ‘What do T’lan Imass know of footpaths?’ Raest asked. ‘In any case, it’s still too angry for a conversation.’ Another pause. ‘But there’s time. Soldier, you have been remiss. I am therefore disinclined to yield the floor, as it were.’

  ‘Like Hood I have!’ And Antsy reached beneath his tunic and tugged out a bedraggled, half-rotted shape. ‘I found you your damned white cat!’

  ‘Oh, so you have. How sweet. In that case,’ Raest edged back, ‘do come in.’

  Barathol hesitated. ‘What will this achieve, Antsy?’

  ‘He won’t die,’ the ex-sergeant replied. ‘It’s like time doesn’t exist in there. Trust me. We can find us a proper healer tomorrow, or a month from now – it don’t matter. S’long as he’s breathing when we carry him across the threshold. So, come on, help me.’ He then realized he was still clutching the dead cat, and so he went up to the Jaghut and thrust the ghastly thing into most welcoming arms.

  ‘I shall call it Tufty,’ said Raest.

  The black tide ceased its seemingly inexorable crawl. A slow, shallow breath held half drawn. A struggling heart hovered in mid-beat. And yet that spark of awareness, suddenly emboldened, set out on a journey of exploration and discovery. So many long-dark pathways . . .

  Dragnipur has drunk deep, so deep.

  Dragnipur, sword of the father and slayer of the same. Sword of Chains, Gate of Darkness, wheeled burden of life and life ever flees dissolution and so it must! Weapon of edges, caring naught who wields it. Cut indifferent, cut blind, cut when to do so is its very purpose, its perfect function.

  Dragnipur.

  Dread sisterly feuds dwindled in significance – something was proffered, something was almost within reach. Matters of final possession could be worked out later, at leisure in some wrought-iron, oversized bath-tub filled to the brim with hot blood.

  Temporary pact. Expedience personified, Spite quelled, Envy in abeyance.

  In their wake a crater slowly sagged, edges toppling inward, heat fast dissipating. The melted faces of buildings turned glassy in rainbow hues. For now the brilliance of these colours was but hinted at in this moon-glow. But that reflected light had begun a thousand new games, hinting at something far deadlier. Still to come, still to come.

  Everywhere in the city, fires ebbed.

  The pressure of Dragnipur Unsheathed starves the flames of destruction. Darkness is anathema to such forces, after all.

  Yes, salvation found, in a weapon let loose.

  The sisters were mad, but not so mad as to fail to grasp the pleasing irony of such things.

  Quell the violence.

  Invite murder.

  He was in no condition to resist them – not both of them – extraordinary that such an alliance had not occurred long before this night. But sibling wounds are the festering kind, and natures at war are normally blind to every pacifying gesture. What was needed was the proper incentive.

  Alas, it did not occur to either twin that their father understood all too well the potential danger of his daughters forged together in alliance. And in shaping them – as carefully, as perfectly as he shaped Dragnipur itself – he had done what he could to mitigate the risk.

  And so, as they walked side by side up the street, in Spite’s mind she had already begun scheming her fateful stab into her sister’s back. While Envy amused herself with virtually identical thoughts, roles reversed, naturally.

  First things first, however.

  They would kill Anomander Rake.

  For Dragnipur has drunk deep, so very deep . . .

  ‘Karsa, please.’

  Ashes drifted in the air, amidst foul smoke. Distant screams announced tragic scenes. The last night of the Gedderone Fête was sinking into misery and suffering.

  ‘There is nothing to be done, Samar Dev. But we will do this – we will witness. We will withstand the cost of that, if we can.’

  She had not expected such uncertainty in the Toblakai. Always a stranger to humility, or so he seemed to her. He had not even drawn his flint sword.

  They were twenty-five paces behind Traveller. They could see an angled gate arching over the broad street as it sloped upward, a hundred paces ahead. But the warrior they tracked had slowed his steps. There was something – someone – in the centre of the street in front of Traveller. And silent crowds on both sides – crowds that flinched back as the Hounds lumbered into view; flinched, but did not flee.

  Something held them in place, something stronger than fear.

  Samar Dev sensed the pressure sliding past, like a wind sweeping round her, drawing inward once more – straight into that huddled figure, who now, at last, stirred.

  Traveller stood, six or so paces away from the stranger, 1176 and watched in silence as the man slowly straightened.

  Tiste Andii.

  Silver-haired. In his hands, a sword trailing ghostly chains . . . oh . . . spirits below, oh, no—

  Traveller spoke. ‘He said you would stand in my way.’ That voice carried, strong as waves surging against a dark shore.

  Samar Dev’s heart stuttered.

  When Anomander Rake replied, his words were cold, solid and unyielding, ‘What else did he tell you?’

  Traveller shook his head. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded. ‘I can feel – he’s close. Where is he?’

  Not Cotillion. A different ‘he’ this time. The one Traveller seeks. The one he has ever sought.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rake. ‘Close.’

  Thick, flapping sounds, drifting in from the smoky night sky. She looked up in alarm and saw Great Ravens. Landing upon roof ledges. Scores, hundreds, silent but for the beat of air beneath crooked wings. Gathering, gathering, along the arched gate and the sections of wall to either side. Landing everywhere, so long as it’s a place from which they can see.

  ‘Then stand aside,’ commanded Traveller.

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Dammit, Rake, you are not my enemy.’

  The Son of Darkness tilted his head, as if receiving a compliment, an unexpected gift.

  ‘Rake. You have never been my enemy. You know that. Even when the Empire . . .’

  ‘I know, Dassem. I know.’

  ‘He said this would happen.’ There was dismay in that statement, and resignation.

  Rake m
ade no reply.

  ‘He said,’ continued Dassem, ‘that you would not yield.’

  ‘No, I will not yield.’

  ‘Please help me, Rake, help me to understand . . . why?’

  ‘I am not here to help you, Dassem Ultor.’ And Samar Dev heard genuine regret in that admission. The Son of Darkness closed both hands about the long grip of Dragnipur and, angling the pommel upward and to his right, slowly widened his stance. ‘If you so want Hood,’ he said, ‘come and get him.’

  Dassem Ultor – the First Sword of the Malazan Empire – who was supposed to be dead. As if Hood would even want this one – Dassem Ultor, the one they had known as Traveller, unsheathed his sword, the water-etched blade flashing as if lapped by molten silver. Samar Dev’s sense of a rising wave now burgeoned in her mind. Two forces. Sea and stone, sea and stone.

  Among the onlookers to either side, a deep, soft chant had begun.

  Samar Dev stared at those arrayed faces, the shining eyes, the mouths moving in unison. Gods below, the cult of Dessembrae. These are cultists – and they stand facing their god.

  And that chant, yes, it was a murmuring, it was the cadence of deep water rising. Cold and hungry.

  Samar Dev saw Anomander Rake’s gaze settle briefly on Dassem’s sword, and it seemed a sad smile showed itself, in the instant before Dassem attacked.

  To all who witnessed – the cultists, Samar Dev, Karsa Orlong, even unto the five Hounds of Shadow and the Great Ravens hunched on every ledge – that first clash of weapons was too fast to register. Sparks slanted, the night air rang with savage parries, counter-blows, the biting crunch of edges against cross-hilts. Even their bodies were but a blur.

  And then both warriors staggered back, opening up the distance between them once more.

  ‘Faces in the Rock,’ hissed Karsa Orlong.

  ‘Karsa—’

  ‘No. Only a fool would step between these two.’

  And the Toblakai sounded . . . shaken.

  Dassem launched himself forward again. There were no war cries, no bellowed curses, not even the grunts bursting free as ferocious swings hammered forged iron. But the swords had begun singing, a dreadful, mournful pair of voices rising in eerie syncopation. Thrusts, slashes, lowedged ripostes, the whistle of a blade cutting through air where a head had been an instant earlier, bodies writhing to evade counter-strokes, and sparks rained, poured, from the two combatants, bounced like shattered stars across the cobbles.

  They did not break apart this time. The frenzied flurry did not abate, but went on, impossibly on. Two forces, neither yielding, neither prepared to draw a single step back.

  And yet, for all the blinding speed, the glowing shower spraying out like the blood of iron, Samar Dev saw the death blow. She saw it clear. She saw its undeniable truth – and somehow, somehow, it was all wrong.

  Rake wide-legged, angling the pommel high before his face with Dragnipur’s point downward – as if to echo his opening stance – and higher still, and Dassem, his free hand joining the other upon his sword’s grip, throwing his entire weight into a crossways slash – the warrior bodily lifting as if about to take to the air and close upon Rake with an embrace. And his swing met the edge of Dragnipur at a full right angle – a single moment shaping a perfect cruciform fashioned by the two weapons’ colliding, and then the power of Dassem’s blow slammed Dragnipur back—

  Driving its inside edge into Anomander Rake’s forehead, and then down through his face.

  His gauntleted hands sprang away from the handle, yet Dragnipur remained jammed, seeming to erupt from his head, as he toppled backward, blood streaming down to flare from the tip as the Son of Darkness crashed down on his back.

  Even this impact did not dislodge Dragnipur. The sword shivered, and now there was but one song, querulous and fading in the sudden stillness.

  Blood boiled, turned black. The body lying on the cobbles did not move. Anomander Rake was dead.

  Dassem Ultor slowly lowered his weapon, his chest heaving.

  And then he cried out, in a voice so filled with anguish that it seemed to tear a jagged hole in the night air. This unhuman scream was joined by a chorus of shrieks as the Great Ravens exploded into flight, lifting like a massive feathered veil that whirled above the street, and then began a spinning descent. Cultists flinched away and crouched against building walls, their wordless chant drowned beneath the caterwauling cacophony of this black, glistening shroud that swept down like a curtain.

  Dassem staggered back, and then pitched drunkenly to one side, his sword dragging in his wake, point skirling a snake track across the cobbles. He was brought up short by a pitted wall, and he sagged against it, burying his face in the shelter of a crooked arm that seemed to be all that held him upright.

  Broken. Broken. They are broken.

  Oh, gods forgive them, they are broken.

  Karsa Orlong shocked her then, as he twisted to one side and pointedly spat on to the street. ‘Cheated,’ he said. ‘Cheated!’

  She stared at him, aghast. She did not know what he meant – but no, she did. Yes, she did. ‘Karsa, what just happened?’ Wrong. It was wrong. ‘I saw – I saw—’

  ‘You saw true,’ he said, baring his teeth, his gaze fixed upon that fallen body. ‘As did Traveller, and see what it has done to him.’

  The area surrounding the corpse of Anomander Rake churned with Great Ravens – although not one drew close enough to touch the cooling flesh – and now the five Hounds of Shadow, not one spared of wounds, closed in to push the birds aside, as if to form a protective circle around Anomander Rake.

  No, not him. The sword . . .

  Unease stirred awake in Samar Dev. ‘This is not over.’

  A beast can sense weakness. A beast knows the moment of vulnerability, and opportunity. A beast knows when to strike.

  The moon died and, in dying, began its torturous rebirth. The cosmos is indifferent to the petty squabbles of what crawls, what whimpers, what bleeds and what breathes. It has flung out its fates on the strands of immutable laws, and in the skirling unravelling of millions of years, tens of millions, each fate will out. In its time, it will out.

  Something massive had arrived from the depths of the blackness beyond and struck the moon a short time back. An initial eruption from the impact had briefly showered the moon’s companion world with fragments, but it was the shock-wave that delivered the stricken moon’s death knell, and this took time. Deep in the core, vast tides of energy opened immense fissures. Concussive forces shattered the crust. Energy was absorbed until nothing more could be borne. The moon blew apart.

  Leave it to the flit of eager minds to find prophetic significance. The cosmos does not care. The fates will not crack a smile.

  From a thousand sources, now, reflected sunlight danced wild upon the blue, green and ochre world far below. Shadows were devoured, darkness flushed away. Night itself broke into fragments.

  In the city of Darujhistan, light was everywhere, like a god’s fingers. Brushing, prodding, poking, driving down into alleys that had never seen the sun. And each assault shattered darkness and shadow both. Each invasion ignited, in a proclamation of power.

  Dearest serendipity, yet not an opportunity to be ignored, no. Not on this night. Not in the city of Darujhistan.

  Pallid and Lock, their bone-white hides sprayed in crimson, their skin hanging in strips in places, with horrid puncture wounds red-rimmed black holes in their necks and elsewhere, padded side by side down the main avenue running parallel to the lake shore. Hurting, but undaunted.

  Light bloomed, ran like water across their path.

  Light tilted shafts down between buildings, and some of these flashed, and from those flashes more Hounds emerged.

  Behold, the Hounds of Light have arrived.

  What, the world shifts unexpectedly? Without hint, without inkling? How terrible, how unexpected! How perfectly . . . natural. Rules abound, laws carved into stones, but they are naught but delusions. Witness the ones who do
not care. See the mocking awareness in their fiery eyes. Rail at the unknown, even as jaws open wide for the warbling throat.

  But give the round man no grief. He spreads wide pudgy hands. He shrugs. He saves his sly smile for . . . why, for thee!

  Venasara and Cast were the first to join Pallid and Lock. Cast was almost twice the weight of Lock, while Venasara still bore the signs of the ordeals of raising a squabble of young. Ultama soon arrived, long-limbed, sleek, broad head held low at the end of a sinewy neck. Ultama’s oversized upper canines jutted down. The exposed portions of the fangs, dagger-length, gleamed white.

  At an intersection ahead waited Jalan, Grasp and Hanas, the youngest three of the pack, hackles high and eyes flashing with vicious excitement.

  Gait and then Ghennan were the last to arrive, the lord and the lady of the pack, more silver than white, with scarred muzzles misshapen by centuries of dread battle. These two wore thick collars of black leather scattered with pearls and opals – although far fewer than had once adorned these proud bands.

  Ten in number. Each one a match for any Hound of Shadow.

  Of whom there were, ah, but five.

  No one stepped into the path of these beasts. They were coming to claim a prize for their master.

  Dragnipur. A sword of perfect justice.

  Such perfect justice.

  High in the sky above the city, tilting, sliding and dipping to avoid each shaft of infernal light, an undead dragon tracked the Hounds of Light.

  Tulas Shorn was not pleased, even as something flowed sweet as a stream through its mind. A kind of blessing, alighting with faint, lilting notes of wonder.

  Tulas Shorn had never known that Hood, Lord of the Slain, could prove so . . . generous.

  Or perhaps it was nothing more than a Jaghut’s talent for anticipating the worst.

  As an Elder might observe, there is nothing worse than a suspicious dragon.

  Do not grieve. Hold close such propensities for a while longer. The time will come.

  Some gifts are evil. Others are not, but what they are remains to be discovered.