Toll the Hounds

  Oh, there was a lesson there, yes. At least it seemed that Murillio had heeded it, if the rumours of his ‘retirement’ were accurate. And what about me? Have I taken note? It seems not. I still go to her, I still plunge into this betrayal. I go to her, so hungry, so desperate, it is as if we have remade ourselves into perfect reflections. Me and Challice. Hand in hand in our descent.

  Because it makes the fall easier, doesn’t it?

  There was nothing to stop Gorlas Vidikas from exacting vengeance. He would be entirely within his rights to hunt them both down and murder them, and a part of Cutter would not blame him if he did just that.

  He was thinking such thoughts as he walked to the annexe warehouse, but they did little to assail his anticipation. Into each other’s arms again, desire hot as a fever in their mouths, their hands, their groins. Proof, to Cutter’s mind, of the claims of some scholars that humans were but animals – clever ones, but animals none the less. There was no room for thinking, no space for rationality. Consequences thinned to ethereal ghosts, snatched in with the first gasp and flung away in the next. Only the moment mattered.

  He made no effort to disguise himself, no effort to mask the destination of his journey, and he well knew how the locals around the warehouse watched him, with that glittering regard that was envy and disgust and amusement in equal parts; much as they had watched Challice perhaps only moments earlier, although in her case lust probably warred with all the other emotions. No, this affair was a brazen thing, and that in itself somehow made it all the more erotic.

  There was heat in his mind as he used his key to open the office door, and when he stepped within he could smell her perfume in the dusty air. Through the office and into the cavernous warehouse interior, and then to the wooden steps leading to the loft.

  She must have heard his ascent, for she was standing facing the door when he arrived.

  Something in her eyes stopped him.

  ‘You have to save me,’ she said.

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Promise you’ll save me, my love. Promise!’

  He managed a step forward. ‘Of course. What’s—’

  ‘He knows.’

  The heat of desire evaporated. He was suddenly cold inside.

  Challice drew closer and in her face he saw an expression he struggled to identify, and when he did the cold turned into ice. She is . . . excited.

  ‘He will kill you. And me. He’ll kill us both, Crokus!’

  ‘As is his right—’

  In her eyes a sudden fear, and she fixed him with it for a long moment before turning round. ‘Maybe you have no problem with dying,’ she hissed as she walked to the bed, where she faced him again. ‘But I have!’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘You know what to do.’

  ‘What we should do,’ he said, ‘is run. Take what you can and let’s just run. Find some other city—’

  ‘No! I don’t want to leave here! I like it here! I like the way I live, Crokus!’

  ‘It was just a day or two ago, Challice, that you were lying in my arms and talking about escaping—’

  ‘Just dreams – that wasn’t real. I mean, the dream wasn’t real. Wasn’t realistic – just a stupid dream. You can’t take any notice of what I say after we’ve . . . been together. I just come out with any old thing. Crokus, we’re in trouble. We have to do something – we have to do it now.’

  You just come out with any old thing, do you, Challice? But it’s only after we’ve been together that you say you love me.

  ‘He’ll kill me,’ she whispered.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like the Gorlas you’ve been describing.’

  She sat down on the bed. ‘He confronted me. Yesterday.’

  ‘You didn’t mention—’

  She shook her head. ‘It seemed, well, it seemed it was just the usual game. He said he wanted to know about you, and I said I’d tell him when he got back – he’s at the mines right now. And then, and then, walking here just now – O gods! I suddenly understood! Don’t you see? He was asking about the man he planned to kill!’

  ‘So he plans to kill me. What of it, Challice?’

  She bared her teeth, and it was an expression so brutal, so ugly, that Cutter was shocked. ‘I said I understood. First you. Then he’ll come back to me, so he can tell me what he did to you. In every detail. He will use every word like a knife – until he pulls out the real one. And then he’ll cut my throat.’ She looked up at him. ‘Is that what you want? Does his killing me matter to you, Crokus?’

  ‘He won’t kill you—’

  ‘You don’t know him!’

  ‘It sounds as if you don’t, either.’ At her glare, he added, ‘Look, assume he’ll take pleasure in killing me, and he will. And then, even more pleasure in telling you all about it – yes? We’re agreed on that?’

  She nodded, a single motion, tight.

  ‘But if he then kills you, what has he got? Nothing. No, he’ll want you to do it again, with someone else. Over and over again, and each time it’ll turn out the same – he kills your lover, he tells you about it. He doesn’t want all that to end. The man’s a duellist, right, one who likes killing his opponents. This way, he can lawfully do it to as many men as you care to collect, Challice. He wins, you win—’

  ‘How can you say I win!’

  ‘—because,’ he finished, ‘neither of you gets bored.’

  She stared at him as if he had just kicked in some invisible door hidden inside her. And then recovered. ‘I don’t want you to die, Crokus. Cutter – I keep forgetting. It’s Cutter now. A dangerous name. An assassin’s name. Careful, or someone might think there’s something real behind it.’

  ‘Which is it, Challice? You don’t want me to die. Or am I the man I pretend to be? What is it, exactly, you’re trying to appeal to?’

  ‘But I love you!’

  And there was that word again. And whatever it meant to her probably was not what it meant to him – not that he knew what it meant to him, of course. He moved to one side, as if intent on circling the bed even if it took him through the outer wall, then halted and ran his hands through his hair. ‘Have you been leading me to this moment all along?’

  ‘What?’

  He shook his head. ‘Just wondering out loud. It’s not important.’

  ‘I want my life as it is, Cutter, only without him. I want you instead of him. That’s how I want it.’

  What would Murillio say in this situation? But no, I’m not Murillio.

  Still . . .

  He’d be out through this window in a heartbeat. Duels with wronged husbands? Hood’s breath! He faced her. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘I just told you it was!’

  ‘No, that’s not what I meant. I meant . . . oh, never mind.’

  ‘You have to do it. For me. For us.’

  ‘He’s at the mines west of the city? For how much longer?’

  ‘Two days at least. You can go out there.’

  And suddenly she was standing in front of him, hands on the sides of his face, her body pressing hard, and he stared down into her dilated eyes.

  Excitement.

  I used to think . . . that look – this look . . . I used to think . . .

  ‘My love,’ she whispered. ‘It has to be done. You see that, don’t you?’

  But it was always this, just this. Leading up to this moment. Where she was taking me – or have I got it all wrong?

  ‘Challice—’

  But her mouth was on his now, and she swallowed down all his words, until none were left.

  Spin round and rush back. Murillio still lies in the dust, a crowd mechanically cheering in the pit below. The day draws to a close, and a youth named Venaz gathers his gang of followers and sets out for the tunnel called Steep.

  Not much need be said about Venaz. But let us give him this. Sold to the mine by his stepfather – dear Ma too drunk to even lift her head when the collectors showed up and if she heard the c
linking of coins, well, her thoughts would have crawled the short distance to the moment when she could buy another bottle, and no further. That had been four years ago.

  The lesson that a child is not loved, not even by the one who bore it, delivers a most cruel wound. One that never heals, but instead stretches scar tissue over the mind’s eye, so that for that orphan’s entire life the world beyond is tainted, and it sees what others do not, and is blinded by perpetual mistrust to all that the heart feels. Such was Venaz, but to know is not to excuse, and we shall leave it there.

  Venaz’s pack consisted of boys a year or so younger than him. They vied with each other for position in the pecking order and were as vicious individually as they were in a group. They were just versions of him, variations only on the surface. They followed and would do anything he told them to, at least until he stumbled, made a mistake. And then they would close in like half-starved wolves.

  Venaz walked emboldened, excited, delighted at this amazing turn of events. The Big Man wanted Harllo and not to pat him on the head either. No, there would be even more blood spilled on this day, and if Venaz could work it right, why, he might be the one to spill it – at the Big Man’s nod, that’s all it would take, and maybe the Big Man would see how good Venaz could be. Good enough, maybe, to recruit him into his own household. Every noble needed people like Venaz, to do the ugly stuff, the bad stuff.

  They reached the slope leading to the mouth of the tunnel. Three grown-ups were trying to fix the axle of a cart and they looked up when Venaz arrived.

  ‘Where’s Bainisk?’ Venaz asked.

  ‘New vein,’ one of them replied. ‘He in trouble again?’

  ‘He got his moles with him?’ It felt good being so important he didn’t have to answer the man’s question.

  Shrugs all round.

  Venaz scowled. ‘Has he got his moles with him?’

  The one who’d spoken slowly straightened. His backhanded slap caught Venaz by surprise, and was hard enough to knock the boy back. He was then grabbed and thrown on to the stony ground. The man stood over him. ‘Watch your mouth.’

  Venaz sat up, glaring. ‘You ain’t seen what just happened? Up on the ridge?’

  Another grunted. ‘We heard ‘bout something.’

  ‘A duel – the Big Man killed someone!’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘And then he called for Harllo! He wants Harllo! And I come to get him and you’re stopping me and when he hears—’

  He got no further as the man who had struck him now grasped him by the throat and dragged him to his feet. ‘He won’t hear nothing, Venaz. You think we give a fuck about Vidikas having a fuckin’ duel? Killin’ some poor bastard for what? Our entertainment?’

  ‘He’s turnin’ blue, Haid. Better loosen yer grip some.’

  Venaz gasped an agonizing lungful of air.

  ‘Get it right, lad,’ Haid went on, ‘Vidikas owns us. We’re pieces of meat to him, right? So he puts out a call for one of us and for what? Why, to chew it up, that poor piece of meat. And what, you think that’s a fuckin’ good idea? Get outa my sight, Venaz, but you can count on me rememberin’ this.’

  The pack was huddled together now, white-faced, but among some of them there was something rather more calculating. Was this the moment to usurp Venaz? The three men went back to working on the axle. Venaz, his colour returning to normal, dusted himself off and then set out in a stiff-legged march towards the tunnel mouth. His pack fell in behind him.

  As they plunged into the cool gloom Venaz wheeled. ‘That was Haid and Favo and Dule, right? Remember them names. They’re on my list now, all three of them. They’re on my list.’

  Faces nodded.

  And those who had been weighing their chances each realized that the moment had passed. They’d been too slow. Venaz had a way of recovering, and fast, scary fast. He was, they reminded themselves yet again, going places, without a doubt.

  Harllo slid along the vein, feeling with his bare stomach the purity of the black silver and, yes, it was silver and where had it come from when all they’d been working for so long was copper up on the skins and iron down deep? But it felt so beautiful, this silver. Better than gold, better than anything.

  Wait till he told Bainisk and Bainisk told the foreman! They’d be heroes. They might even get extra portions at supper, or a cup of watered wine!

  The chute was narrow, so small they’d need moles for weeks before it got worked out big enough to take the pickers, so there was a good chance that Harllo would be seeing – and feeling – a lot more of this silver, every day, maybe.

  And all that trouble from before would go away, just like that – he knew it would—

  ‘Harllo!’

  The voice whispered up from somewhere behind his feet, reminding him that he was still head down and that could be dangerous. He might pass out and not even know it. ‘I’m all right, Bainisk! I found—’

  ‘Harllo! Get back here right now!’

  A shiver ran through Harllo. Bainisk’s voice didn’t sound right. It sounded . . . scared.

  But that wouldn’t last, would it? Not with the silver—

  ‘Hurry!’

  Moving backwards was never easy. He pushed with his hands, squirmed and pressed his toes against the hard stone and then extended his heels. There were leather pads tied to his feet for this purpose, but it still hurt. Like a caterpillar, gathering up and then pushing, bit by bit, working his way back up the chute.

  All at once hands grasped his ankles and he was being roughly dragged.

  Harllo cried out as his chin struck an obstruction and when he lifted his head up the top crunched on rock, scraping away skin and hair. ‘Bainisk! What—’

  He fell free of the chute, thumping down. The hands released his ankles and now grasped his upper arms, lifting him to his feet.

  ‘Bainisk—’

  ‘Shhh! Word’s come down – someone came to find you – from the city.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Vidikas killed him – in a duel – and now he’s called for you to be brought to him. It’s bad, Harllo. I think he’s going to kill you!’

  But this was too much to hear, too much all at once – someone had come – who? Gruntle! And Vidikas had . . . had killed him. No. He couldn’t have – he didn’t— ‘Who was he?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Listen, we’re going to escape, you and me, Harllo – do you understand?’

  ‘But how can we—’

  ‘We’re going deeper in, to the Settle—’

  ‘But that’s not safe—’

  ‘There are huge cracks on that side – some of them, they got to go right up and out, lakeside. We get there, and then along the shoreline, all the way back to the city!’

  They had been hissing back and forth, and now they heard shouts echoing down from the main passage.

  ‘Venaz – that figures, doesn’t it? Come on, Harllo, we got to go now!’

  They set out, each with a lantern, Bainisk taking a coil of rope as well, down through the fresh workings – there was no one there yet, as first the air had been bad and then there’d been flooding and only the shift before the last of the hoses was snaked out to see how much more water was seeping back in. After fifty or so paces they were ankledeep in icy water and flows slicked the side walls and drops rained down from the ceiling. The farther in they went, the more cracks they saw – everywhere, all sides, above and below – proof that they were reaching the Settle, where half a cliff was sinking towards the lake. The rumours were that it was only days from collapse.

  The tunnel descended in irregular shelves, and now the water was at Harllo’s thighs, numbingly cold. Both were gasping.

  ‘Bainisk – will this go back up?’

  ‘It will, if the water’s not too deep, it will, I promise.’

  ‘Why – why are you doing this? You should’ve just handed me over.’

  Bainisk was some time before answering. ‘I want to see it, Harllo.’

  ??
?You want to see what?’

  ‘The city. I – I just want to see it, that’s all. When I heard, well, it was as if everything fell into place. This was the time – our best chance – this close to the Settle.’

  ‘You’d been thinking about this.’

  ‘Yes. Harllo, I never stop thinking about this.’

  ‘The city.’

  ‘The city.’

  Something clanged somewhere behind them – still distant, but closer than expected.

  ‘Venaz! They’re after us – shit – come on, Harllo, we got to hurry.’

  The water reached Harllo’s hips. He was having trouble working his legs. He kept stumbling. Twice he almost let his lantern sink down too far. Their desperate gasping echoed on all sides, along with sloshing water.

  ‘Bainisk, I can’t—’

  ‘Drop your light – just take hold of my shirt – I’ll pull you. Don’t let go.’

  Groaning, Harllo let the lantern sink into the water. A sudden hiss, something cracking. When he released the handle the lantern vanished into the blackness. He took hold of Bainisk’s ragged shirt.

  They continued on, Harllo feeling his legs trailing behind him but only from the hips – below that there was nothing. A strange lassitude flowed into him, taking away the icy cold. Bainisk was chest-deep now, whimpering as he sought to keep the lantern held high.

  They stopped.

  ‘The tunnel goes under,’ said Bainisk.

  ‘Issallright, Bainisk. We gan stop now.’

  ‘No, hold on to this ledge. I’m going under. I won’t be long. I promise.’

  He set the lantern on a narrow ledge. And then he sank down and was gone.

  Harllo was alone. It would be much easier to let go, to relax his aching hands. Venaz was coming, he’d be here soon. And then it would be over. The water was warm now – that might be one way to escape them. Do what Bainisk had just done. Just sink away, vanish.

  He wasn’t wanted, he knew. Not by his mother, not by anyone. And the one who’d come to find him, well, that man had died for that. And that wasn’t right. Nobody should go and die for Harllo. Not Gruntle, not Bainisk, not anybody. So, no more of any of that – he could let go—

  Foaming water, thrashing, gasps and coughs. An icy hand clutched at Harllo.