Toll the Hounds

  He was, after all, not the begging sort.

  The one exception was Draconus. Ah, but those circumstances were unique, the crime so faceted, so intricately complicated, that it did no good to seek to prise loose any single detail. In any case, the forgiveness he asked for did not demand an answer. All that mattered was that Draconus be given those words. He could do with them as he pleased.

  Anomander Rake stood, eyes fixed heavenward, facing that seething conflagration, the descending annihilation, and he did not blink, did not flinch. For he felt its answer deep within him, in the blood of Tiam, the blood of chaos.

  He would stand, then, for all those he had chained here. He would stand for all the others as well. And for these poor, broken souls underfoot. He would stand, and face that ferocious chaos.

  Until the very last moment. The very last moment.

  Like a mass of serpents, the tattoos swarmed beneath him.

  Kadaspala had waited for so long. For this one chance. Vengeance against the slayer of a beloved sister, the betrayer of Andarist, noble Andarist, husband and brother. Oh, he had come to suspect what Anomander Rake intended. Sufficient reparation? All but one Tiste Andii would answer ‘yes’ to that question. All but one.

  Not Kadaspala! No, not me! Not me not me! Not me not me not me!

  I will make you fail. In this, your last gesture, your pathetic attempt at reconciliation – I will make you fail!

  See this god I made? See it? See it see it!

  No, you did not expect that expect that expect that, did you now? Did you now?

  Nor the knife in its hand. Nor the knife in its hand!

  Teeth bared, blind Kadaspala twisted on to his back, the better to see the Son of Darkness, yes, the better to see him. Eyes were not necessary and eyes were not necessary. To see the bastard.

  Standing so tall, so fierce, almost within reach.

  Atop the mountain of bodies, the moaning bridge of flesh and bone, the sordid barrier at Dark’s door, this living ward – so stupid so stupid! Standing there, eyes lifting up, soul facing down and down and downward – will she sense him? Will she turn? Will she see? Will she understand?

  No to all of these things. For Kadaspala has made a god a god a god he has made a god and the knife the knife the knife—

  Anomander Rake stands, and the map awakens, its power and his power, awakening.

  Wandering Hold, wander no longer. Fleeing Gate, flee no more. This is what he will do. This is the sacrifice he will make, oh so worthy so noble so noble yes and clever and so very clever and who else but Anomander Rake so noble and so clever?

  All to fail!

  Child god! It’s time! Feel the knife in your hand – feel it! Now lift it high – the fool sees nothing, suspects nothing, knows nothing of how I feel, how I do not forget will never forget will never forget and no, I will never forget!

  Reach high.

  Stab!

  Stab!

  Stab!

  Storm of light, a scattered moon, a rising sun behind bruised clouds from which brown, foul rain poured down, Black Coral was a city under siege, and the Tiste Andii within it could now at last feel the death of their Lord, and with him the death of their world.

  Was it fair, to settle the burden of long-dead hope upon one person, to ask of that person so much? Was it not, in fact, cowardice? He had been their strength. He had been their courage. And he had paid the Hound’s Toll for them all, centuries upon centuries, and not once had he turned away.

  As if to stand in his mother’s stead. As if to do what she would not.

  Our Lord is dead. He has left us.

  A people grieved.

  The rain descended. Kelyk ran in bitter streams on the streets, down building walls. Filled the gutters in mad rush. Droplets struck and sizzled black upon the hide of Silanah. This was the rain of usurpation, and against it they felt helpless.

  Drink deep, Black Coral.

  And dance, yes, dance until you die.

  Monkrat struggled his way up the muddy, root-tangled slope with the last two children in his arms. He glanced up to see Spindle crouched at the crest, smeared in clay, looking like a damned gargoyle. But there was no glee in the staring eyes, only exhaustion and dread.

  The unnatural rain had reached out to this broken, half-shattered forest. The old trenches and berms were black with slime, the wreckage of retaining walls reminding him of rotting bones and teeth, as if the hillside’s flesh had been torn away to reveal a giant, ravaged face, which now grinned vacuously at the grey and brown sky.

  The two ex-Bridgeburners had managed to find an even twenty children, four of them so close to death they’d weighed virtually nothing, hanging limp in their arms. The two men had worked through the entire night ferrying them up to the entrenchments, down into the tunnels where they could be out of the worst of the rain. They had scrounged blankets, some food, clean water in clay jugs.

  As Monkrat drew closer Spindle reached down to help him scrabble over the edge. The scrawny girls dangled like straw dolls, heads lolling, as Monkrat passed each one up to Spindle, who stumbled away with them, sloshing through the muddy rivulet of the trench.

  Monkrat sagged, stared down at the ground to keep the rain from his eyes and mouth as he drew in deep breaths.

  A lifetime of soldiering, aye, the kind that made miserable slogs like this one old news, as familiar as a pair of leaking leather boots. So what made this one feel so different?

  He could hear someone crying in the tunnel, and then Spindle’s voice, soothing, reassuring.

  And gods, how Monkrat wanted to weep.

  Different, aye, so very different.

  ‘Soldiers,’ he muttered, ‘come in all sorts.’

  He’d been one kind for a long time, and had grown so sick of it he’d just walked away. And now Spindle showed up, to take him and drag him inside out and make him into a different kind of soldier. And this one, why, it felt right. It felt proper. He’d no idea . . .

  He looked over as Spindle stumbled into view. ‘Let’s leave it at this, Spin,’ he begged. ‘Please.’

  ‘I want to stick a knife in Gradithan’s face,’ Spindle growled. ‘I want to cut out his black tongue. I want to drag the bastard up here so every one of them tykes can see what I do to him—’

  ‘You do that and I’ll kill you myself,’ Monkrat vowed, baring his teeth. ‘They seen too much as it is, Spin.’

  ‘They get to see vengeance—’

  ‘It won’t feel like vengeance to them,’ Monkrat said, ‘it’ll just be more of the same fucking horror, the same cruel madness. You want vengeance, do it in private, Spindle. Do it down there. But don’t expect my help – I won’t have none of it.’

  Spindle stared at him. ‘That’s a different row of knots you’re showing me here, Monkrat. Last night, you was talking it up ‘bout how we’d run him down and do him good—’

  ‘I changed my mind, Spin. These poor runts did that.’ He hesitated. ‘You did that, making me do what we just done.’ He then laughed harshly. ‘Fancy this, I’m feeling . . . redeemed. Now ain’t that ironic, Spin.’

  Spindle slowly settled back against the trench wall, and then sank down until he was sitting in the mud. ‘Shit. How about that. And I walked all this way, looking for just what you done and found here. I was needing something, I thought they was answers . . . but I didn’t even know the right questions.’ He grimaced and spat. ‘I still don’t.’

  Monkrat shrugged. ‘Me neither.’

  ‘But you been redeemed.’ And that statement was almost bitter-sounding.

  Monkrat struggled with his thoughts. ‘When that hits you – me, when it hit me, well, what it’s feeling like right now, Spin, it’s like redemption finds a new meaning. It’s when you don’t need answers no more, because you know that anybody promising answers is fulla crap. Priest, priestess, god, goddess. Fulla crap, you understanding me?’

  ‘That don’t sound right,’ Spindle objected. ‘To be redeemed, someone’s got to do the redee
ming.’

  ‘But maybe it don’t have to be someone else. Maybe it’s just doing something, being something, someone, and feeling that change inside – it’s like you went and redeemed yourself. And nobody else’s opinion matters. And you know that you still got all them questions, right ones, wrong ones, and maybe you’ll be able to find an answer or two, maybe not. But it don’t matter. The only thing that matters is you now know ain’t nobody else has got a damned thing to do with it, with any of it. That’s the redemption I’m talking about here.’

  Spindle leaned his head back and closed his eyes. ‘Lucky you, Monkrat. No, I mean that. I do.’

  ‘You idiot. I was rotting here, seeing everything and doing nothing. If I now ended up someplace else, it’s all because of you. Shit, you just done what a real priest should do – no fucking advice, no bullshit wisdom, no sympathy, none of that crap. Just a damned kick in the balls and get on with doing what you know is right. Anyway, I won’t forget what you done, Spin. I won’t ever forget.’

  Spindle opened his eyes, and Monkrat saw an odd frown on the man’s face as he stared skyward.

  And then he too looked up.

  A lone figure walked towards the Temple of Darkness, moccasins whispering on the slick cobbles. One hand was held up, from which thin delicate chains whirled round and round, the rings at their ends flashing. Thick rain droplets burst apart in that spinning arc, spraying against the face and the half-smile curving the lips.

  Someone within that building was resisting. Was it Rake himself? Clip dearly hoped so, and if it was true, then the so-called Son of Darkness was weak, pathetic, and but moments from annihilation. Clip might have harboured demands and accusations once, all lined up and arrayed like arrows for the plucking. Bowstring thrumming, barbed truths winging unerringly through the air to strike home again and again. Yes, he had imagined such a scene. Had longed for it.

  What value hard judgement when there was no one to hurt with it? Where was satisfaction? Pleasure in seeing the wounds? No, hard judgement was like rage. It thrived on victims. And the delicious flush of superiority in the delivery.

  Perhaps the Dying God would reward him, for he so wanted victims. He had, after all, so much rage to give them. Listen to me, Lord Rake. They slaughtered everyone in the Andara. Everyone! And where were you, when your worshippers were dying? Where were you? They called upon you. They begged you.

  Yes, Clip would break him. He owed his people that much.

  He studied the temple as he approached, and he could sense familiarity in its lines, echoes of the Andara, and Bluerose. But this building seemed rawer, cruder, as if the stone inadvertently mimicked rough-hewn wood. Memories honoured? Or elegance forgotten? No matter.

  An instant’s thought shattered the temple doors, and he felt the one within recoil in pain.

  He ascended the steps, walked through the smoke and dust.

  Rings spinning, kelyk streaming.

  The domed roof was latticed with cracks, and the rain poured down in thick, black threads. He saw a woman standing at the back, her face a mask of horror. And he saw an old man down on his knees in the centre of the mosaic floor, his head bowed.

  Clip halted, frowned. This was his opponent? This useless, broken, feeble thing?

  Where was Anomander Rake?

  He . . . he is not here. He is not even here! I am his Mortal Sword! And he is not even here!

  He screamed in fury. And power lashed out, rushing in a wall that tore tesserae from the broad floor as it ripped its way out from him, that shattered the pillars ringing the chamber so that they toppled back like felled trees. That engulfed the puny old man—

  Endest Silann groaned under the assault. Like talons, the Dying God’s power sank deep into him, shredding his insides. This was too vast to resist. He yielded ground, pace hastening, moments from a rout, a terrified, fatal flight—

  But there was nowhere to go. If he fell now, every Tiste Andii in Black Coral would be lost. Saemankelyk would claim them all, and the city itself would succumb to that dread stain. Kurald Galain would be corrupted, made to feed an alien god’s mad hunger for power.

  And so, amidst a broken chorus of snapping bones and splitting flesh, Endest Silann held on.

  Desperate, searching for a source of strength – anything, anyone – but Anomander Rake was gone. He had raged with power like a pillar of fire. He had been indomitable, and in reaching out a hand to settle firm on a shoulder, he could make his confidence a gift. He could make the ones who loved him do the impossible.

  But now, he was gone.

  And Endest Silann was alone.

  He felt his soul withering, dying under this blistering assault.

  And, from some vast depth, the old man recalled . . . a river.

  Defiant of all light, deep, so deep where ran the currents – currents that no force could contain. He could slip into those sure streams, yes, if he but reached down . . .

  But the pain, it was so fierce. It demanded all of him. He could not claw free of it, even as it devoured him.

  The river – if he could but reach it –

  The god possessing Clip laughed. Everything was within his grasp. He could feel his cherished High Priestess, so lovingly usurped from the Redeemer’s clutches, so thoroughly seduced into the mindless dance of oblivion, the worship of wasted lives – she was defeating the Redeemer’s lone guardian – he was falling back step by step, a mass of wounds, a dozen of them clearly fatal, and though somehow he still stood, still fought, he could not last much longer.

  The god wanted the Redeemer. A more worthy vessel than the one named Clip, which was so venal in its thoughts, so miserable in its hurts. No better than a child burned by neglect, and now all it dreamed of was lashing out.

  It believed it had come to confront its father, but there was no father here. There never had been. It had believed it was chosen to deliver justice, but the one named Clip – who had never seen justice – did not understand its true meaning, which ever belonged solely and exclusively within the cage of one’s own soul.

  No, the god’s need for Clip was coming to an end. This vessel would be given over to saemankelyk, no different from all the others. To dance, to lie above the High Priestess and gush black semen into her womb – a deed without pleasure, for all pleasure was consumed by the Dying God’s own blood, by the sweet kelyk. And she would swell with the immortal gifts a thousand times, ten thousand times.

  The sweetest poison, after all, is the one eagerly shared.

  The god advanced on the kneeling old man. Time to kill the fool.

  Aranatha’s hand was cool and dry in Nimander’s grasp as she led him through an unknown realm that left him blind, stumbling, like a dog beaten senseless, the leash of that hand tugging him on and on.

  ‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘where are we going?’

  ‘To battle,’ she replied, and her voice was almost unrecognizable.

  Nimander felt a tremor of fear. Was this even Aranatha? Perhaps some demon had taken her place – yet the hand, yes, he knew it. Unchanged, so familiar in its ethereal touch. Like a glove with nothing in it – but no, he could feel it, firm, solid. Her hand, like everything else about her, was a mystery he had come to love.

  The kiss she had given him – what seemed an eternity ago – he could feel it still, as if he had tasted something alien, something so far beyond him that he had no hope of ever understanding, of ever recognizing what it might be. A kiss, sweet as a blessing – but had it been Aranatha who had blessed him?

  ‘Aranatha—’

  ‘We are almost there – oh, will you defend me, Nimander? I can but reach through, not far, with little strength. It is all I have ever been able to do. But now . . . she insists. She commands.’

  ‘Who?’ he asked, suddenly chilled, suddenly shivering. ‘Who commands you?’

  ‘Why, Aranatha.’

  But then – ‘Who – who are you?’

  ‘Will you defend me, Nimander? I do not deserve it. My errors are l
egion. My hurt I have made into your curse, a curse upon every one of you. But we are past apologies. We stand in the dust of what’s done.’

  ‘Please—’

  ‘I do not think enough of me can reach through – not against him. I am sorry. If you do not stand in his way, I will fall. I will fail. I feel in your blood a whisper of . . . someone. Someone dear to me. Someone who might have withstood him.

  ‘But he does not await us. He is not there to defend me. What has happened? Nimander, I have only you.’

  The small hand, that had felt dry and cool and so oddly reassuring in its remoteness, now felt suddenly frail, like thin porcelain.

  She does not guide me.

  She holds on.

  He sought comprehension from all that she had said. The blood of someone dear. She cannot reach through, not enough to make her powerful enough against Clip, against the Dying God. She – she is not Aranatha.

  ‘Nimander, I have only you.’

  ‘We stand in the dust of what’s done.’

  ‘Nimander, we have arrived.’

  Tears streamed down Seerdomin’s ravaged face. Overwhelmed by the helplessness, by the futility of his efforts against such an enemy, he rocked to every blow, staggered in retreat, and if he was laughing – and gods, he was – there was no humour in that terrible sound.

  He hadn’t had much pride to begin with – or so he had made his pose, there before the Redeemer, one of such humility – but no soldier with any spine left did not hold to a secret conviction of prowess. And although he had not lied when he’d told himself he was fighting for a god he did not believe in, well, a part of him was unassailed by that particular detail. As if it’d make no difference. And in that was revealed the secret pride he had harboured.

  He would surprise her. He would astonish her by resisting far beyond what she could have anticipated. He would fight the bitch to a standstill.

  How grim, how noble, how poetic. Yes, they would sing of the battle, all those shining faces in some future temple of white, virgin stone, all those shining eyes so pleased to share heroic Seerdomin’s triumphant glory.