Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

by Steven Erikson

Some previous battle had left Clip’s armour and clothes in tatters, with old bloodstains on the dark leather. So many wounds that, if delivered all at once, they should probably have killed him.

Skintick glanced away, back towards the camp. ‘I find Clip…amusing.’ ‘Why does that not surprise me?’ ‘He has created a vast, portentous moment, the moment when he finally stands face to face with the Son of Darkness. He hears martial music, the thunder of drums, or the howl of horns sweeping round the high, swaying tower where this fated meeting no doubt will occur. He sees fear in Anomander Rake’s eyes, in answer to his own fury.’ ‘Then he is a fool.’ ‘Us young folk commonly are. We should tell him.’ ‘Tell him what? That he is a fool?’ Skintick’s smile broadened briefly, then he met Nimander’s eyes once more. ‘Something more subtle, I should think.’ ‘Such as?’ ‘The forest does not change.’ Now it was Nimander’s turn to glance away, to squint into the greyness of dawn, the misty wreaths shrouding the ankles of the trees. She died in my arms. Then Andarist died, bleeding out on to the cobbles. And Phaed was pulled from my hands. Thrown through a window, down to her death. I met the eyes of her killer, and saw that he had killed her…for me. The forest does not change.

Raising the stick, Tiserra unlatched the door and swung it back. The man stepping on to the threshold was wearing a stupid grin. One she knew well, had known for years, although it had been some time since she had last seen it. Lowering the stick, she sighed. ‘Torvald Nom. You’re late.’ ‘Sorry, love,’ he replied. ‘I got waylaid. Slavers. Ocean voyages. Toblakai, dhenrabi, torture and crucifixion, a sinking ship.’ ‘I had no idea going out for a loaf of bread could be so dangerous.’

Reaching down, he collected the skins and the knapsack. ‘Which one drove the bear to the coast?’ he asked. ‘Gear. You needed food, or you would not have got even this far.’ ‘I was very nearly its supper, Cotillion.’ ‘We have always had faith in you, First Sword.’ The next – and probably last – question Traveller had for the god was the most difficult one to voice. ‘And which of you wrecked my ship and killed my crew?’ Cotillion’s brows lifted. ‘Not us. Dassem, we would not do that.’ Traveller studied the god’s eyes – always softer than one might have expected, but he had long since grown used to that – and then he turned away. ‘All right.’

The bard leaned back, retrieving his tankard. ‘It begins with you,’ he said. ‘And it ends with you. Your eyes to witness, your thoughts alone. Tell me of no one’s mind, presume nothing of their workings. You and I, we tell nothing, we but show.’ ‘Yes.’ Duiker looked up, back into those eyes that seemed to contain – and hold sure – the grief of the world. ‘What’s your name, bard?’ ‘Call me Fisher.’

Children made perfect soldiers, perfect killers. They had no sense of mortality. They did not fear death. They took bright pleasure in destruction, even when that destruction involved taking a life. They played with cruelty to watch the results. They understood the simplicity of power found there in the weapon held in the hand. See a bored child with a stick – and see how every beast nearby flees, understanding well what is now possible and, indeed, probable. See the child, eyes scanning the ground, swinging the stick down to crush insects, to thrash flowers, to wage a war of mayhem. Replace the stick with a sword. Explain how guilt need not be considered when the ones who must die are the enemy. Unleash them, these children with the avid eyes. Good soldiers. Andarist had made them good soldiers. What child, after all, does not know rage? But the vessel breaks. The vessel breaks.

‘Plan on living for ever, Kallor?’ ‘Yes, I do.’ ‘What if your stupidity gets you killed?’ Kallor’s grin was feral. ‘It hasn’t yet.’

‘I will tell you a secret – just one, and keep in mind what I said earlier: we women have many secrets. I’m feeling generous today, so listen well. A woman is well pleased with a mate. He is her island, if you will, solid, secure. But sometimes she likes to swim offshore, out a way, floating facing the sun if you will. And she might even dive from sight, down to collect pretty shells and the like. And when she’s done, why, she’ll swim back to the island. The point is, husband, she doesn’t want her mate’s company when swimming. She needs only to know the island waits there.’ Torvald blinked, then frowned. ‘You’re telling me to get lost.’

‘Sounds to be a good thing, getting it all out. When he found out I was in Sha’ik’s camp in Raraku, he thought to cajole details out of me. But I was barely conscious most of that time, so I wasn’t much help. I told him about Heboric, though.’ And Duiker slowly straightened, a sudden glint in his eyes burning away all the sadness, all the weariness. ‘Heboric?’ Scillara smiled. ‘Fisher said you might be interested in that.’ ‘I am. Or,’ he hesitated, ‘I think I am.’ ‘He died, I’m afraid. But I will tell you of it, if you’d like. From the night we fled Sha’ik.’ The light had dimmed in Duiker’s eyes and he looked away. ‘Hood seems determined to leave me the last one standing. All my friends…’

To drive children into labour is to slaughter artists, to scour deathly all wonder, the flickering dart of imagination eager as finches flitting from branch to branch – all crushed to serve grown-up needs and heartless expectations. The adult who demands such a thing is dead inside, devoid of nostalgia’s bright dancing colours, so smooth, so delicious, so replete with longing both sweet and bitter – dead inside, yes, and dead outside, too. Corpses in motion, cold with the resentment the undead bear towards all things still alive, all things still warm, still breathing.

‘Are things truly as dire as I believe, Kruppe?’ Kruppe waggled his brows. ‘Such journeys leave self puckered with dryness, gasping with thirst.’ Sighing, the High Alchemist said, ‘Help yourself.’ Beaming a smile, Kruppe drew out from a sleeve a large dusty bottle, already uncorked. He examined the stamp on the dark green glass. ‘My, your cellar is indeed well equipped!’ A crystal goblet appeared from the other sleeve. He poured. Downed a mouthful then smacked his lips. ‘Exquisite!’

‘You do not put me at ease, Kruppe.’ ‘Join me in a glass of this exquisite vintage!’ ‘There are a dozen wards sealing the cellar – twice as many as at your last visit.’ ‘Indeed?’ ‘You did not trip a single one.’ ‘Extraordinary!’

Lying on his back, hearing footfalls fast approach, Mallet reached up to his neck – he couldn’t breathe – blood gushed down into his lungs, hot and numbing. Frantic, he summoned High Denul— A shadow descended over him and he looked up into a passive young face, the eyes blank as a dagger lifted into view. Kick open the gate, Whiskeyjack— Mallet watched the point flash down.

‘Only with the truth, I think,’ said Endest Silann. ‘So, the Jaghut did not think of themselves as stewards. Nor as parasites. They were without arrogance? I find that an extraordinary thing, Warlord. Beyond comprehension, in fact.’ ‘They shared this world with the Forkrul Assail, who were their opposites. They were witnesses to the purest manifestation of arrogance and separation.’ ‘Was there war?’ Caladan Brood was silent for so long that Endest began to believe that no answer was forthcoming, and then he glanced up with his bestial eyes glittering in the ebbing flames of the hearth. ‘“Was”?’

There was a silence. The tale had been told, Spinnock recalled, more than once. How the Bridgeburner named Whiskeyjack – a man Anomander Rake called friend – had intervened in the slaughter of the Pannion witches, the mad mothers of Children of the Dead Seed. Whiskeyjack, a human, had sought to grant the Son of Darkness a gift, taking away the burden of the act. A gesture that had shaken his Lord to the core. It is not in our nature to permit others to share our burden. Yet we will, unhesitatingly, take on theirs.

They spoke of their respective tribes, traded tales of sexual conquests. They spoke of weapons and neither hesitated in handing over his sword for the other to examine and, indeed, try a few experimental swings and passes with. Traveller told of a friend of old named Ereko, a Tartheno of such pure, ancient blood that he would have towered over Karsa Orlong had the two been standing side by side. And in that story Samar Dev sensed deep sorrow, wounds of such severity that it was soon apparent that Traveller himself could not venture too close, and so his tale of Ereko reached no conclusion. And Karsa Orlong did not press, revealing his clear understanding that a soul could bleed from unseen places and often all that kept a mortal going depended on avoiding such places.

‘He said the priests were getting it all wrong, with that honey. The flies and wasps weren’t the important thing in the ceremony. It was the blood – honey, but that symbolized blood. The Revenants – who were as good as Hood’s own warrior-priests, in the mortal world anyway – well, they were flagellants. Blood on the skin, life bled out to die on the skin – that was the important detail. It’s why Hood cherishes dead soldiers more than any other of the countless dead that stumble through the gate. The Merchants of Blood, the army that will fight on the hidden plain called Defiance Last.’ She paused, then licked her lips. ‘That’s what the Dawn of Flies is about. A final battle, the dead gathered, on a hidden plain called Defiance Last.’ ‘So,’ said Faint, feeling chilled by Sweetest Sufferance’s story, ‘maybe that’s why Hood took the Revenants. Because that battle is coming.’

‘What is your name?’ Ditch asked. ‘What matter any of that?’ ‘For when I next speak to Draconus.’ ‘He knows me.’ ‘I don’t.’ ‘I am Kadaspala, brother to Enesdia who was wife to Andarist.’ Andarist. That’s one name I recognize. ‘You wanted to murder the brother of your sister’s husband?’ ‘I did. For what he did to them, what he did to them. For what he did to them!’ Ditch stared at the anguish in the man’s ravaged face. ‘Who blinded you, Kadaspala?’ ‘It was a gift. A mercy. I did not comprehend the truth of that, not the real truth of it, the real truth. No. Besides, I thought my inner sight would be enough – to challenge Draconus. To steal Dragnipur. I was wrong, wrong. I was wrong. The truth is a gift, a mercy.’ ‘Who blinded you?’ The Tiste Andii flinched, then seemed to curl into himself. Tears glistened in the pits of his sockets. ‘I blinded myself,’ Kadaspala whispered. ‘When I saw what he’d done. What he’d done. To his brother. To my sister. To my sister.’

‘Watch that damned elbow, runt!’ ‘And soon the glory will be delivered unto us—’ ‘—a damned apology!’ ‘What?’ A hulking oaf of a man was forcing himself into Iskaral Pust’s path, his big flat face looking like something one found at the bottom of a nightsoil bucket. ‘I said I expect a damned apology, y’damned toad-faced ferret!’ Iskaral Pust snorted. ‘Oh, look, a hulking oaf of a man with a big flat face looking like something one finds at the bottom of a nightsoil bucket wants me to apologize! And I will, good sir, as soon as you apologize for your oafishness and your bucket-face – in fact, apologize for existing!’

‘He cannot,’ said the middle horseman, and there was something familiar about the face behind the helm’s cheekguards. ‘I remember you from Capustan. Gruntle, chosen servant of Treach. Your god is confused, but it must choose, and soon.’ Gruntle shrugged. ‘There is no point in bringing all this to me. Trake and me, we’re not really on speaking terms. I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t even want it—’ ‘Hah!’ barked the Seguleh, twisting round to face the middle rider. ‘Hear that, Iskar Jarak? Let me kill him!’ Iskar Jarak? I seem to recall he had a different name. One of those odd ones, common to the Malazan soldiery – what was it now?

Though he loved Nimander – indeed, loved them all in this pathetic band (save Clip, of course) – Skintick could not help but observe with silent hilarity the desperate expectations of this journey’s fated end. They all sought safety and, no doubt, a pat on the head for services rendered. They all wanted to be told that their sacrifices had meaning, value, were worthy of pride. And Skintick knew that he alone would be able to see the disdain veiled in the eyes of the Son of Darkness, even as he spouted all the necessary platitudes, before sending them off to their small rooms in some forgotten wing of whatever palace Rake now occupied. And then what, my dearest kin? Shunted out on to the streets to wander in the dusk, as the presence of others slowly prises our band apart, until all we once were becomes memories thick with dust, barely worthy of the occasional reminiscence, some annual gathering in some tavern with a leaking roof, where we will see how we each have sagged with the years, and we’ll get drunk swapping tales we all know by heart, even as the edges grow blunt and all the colours bleed out. Desra lying on her back, her legs spread wide, but the numbness inside can’t be pierced that way and she probably knows but habits never die, they just wear disguises. Nenanda will polish his weapons and armour every morning – we’ll see him clanking round guarding everything and nothing, his eyes mottled with verdigris and rust. Aranatha sits in an overgrown garden, mesmerize...

‘These people baffle me,’ Mappo admitted. ‘We are about to get obliterated, and they look…excited.’ ‘They are mad, Mappo.’ He eyed the Trell for a long moment, then said, ‘You must be desperate to have hired this mob.’ ‘Why is it,’ Mappo asked, ‘that Master Quell seemed indifferent to unleashing an undead dragon into this world?’ ‘Well, hardly indifferent. He said oops!

Tiserra had not expected anything like this. She was not seeking prophecy – her thoughts had been centred on her husband and whatever web he had found himself trapped in – no, not prophecy, nothing on such a grand scale as this… I see the end of Darujhistan. Spirits save us, I see my city’s end. This, Torvald, is your nest. ‘Oh, husband,’ she murmured, ‘you are in trouble indeed…’ Her eyes strayed once more to The Rope. Is that you, Cotillion? Or has Vorcan returned? It’s not just the Guild – the Guild means nothing here. No, there are faces behind that veil. There are terrible deaths coming. Terrible deaths. Abruptly, she swept up the cards, as if by that gesture alone she could defy what was coming, could fling apart the strands and so free the world to find a new future. As if things could be so easy. As if choices were indeed free.

She slipped into the gloom behind the lead wheel. Into the thick, slimy rain. ‘Anomander Rake understands,’ she hissed. ‘He understands, Draconus. More than you ever did. Than you ever will. The world within Dragnipur must die. That is the greatest act of mercy imaginable. The greatest sacrifice. Tell me, Draconus, would you relinquish your power? Would you crush down your selfishness, to choose this…this emasculation? This sword, your cold, iron grin of vengeance – would you see it become lifeless in your hands? As dead as any other hammered bar of iron?’ She ducked beneath the lead axle and heaved the chain on her shoulders up and on to the wooden beam. Then climbed up after it. ‘No, Draconus, you could not do that, could you?’ There had been pity in Rake’s eyes when he killed her. There had been sorrow. But she had seen, even then, in that last moment of locked gazes, how such sentiments were tempered. By a future fast closing in. Only now, here, did she comprehend that. You give us chaos. You give us an end to this. And she knew, were she in Anomander Rake’s place, were she the one possessing Dragnipur, she would fail in this sacrifice. The power of the weapon would seduce her utterly, irrevocably. None other. None other but you, Anomander Rake. Thank the gods.

‘You are ever suspicious of being surprised, aren’t you?’ A curious question. In fact, a damned tangle of a question. She didn’t like it. She didn’t want to go near it. ‘I was civilized, once. Content in a proper city, a city with an underground sewer system, with Malazan aqueducts and hot water from pipes. Hallways between enclosed gardens and the front windows to channel cool air through the house. Proper soap to keep clothes clean. Songbirds in cages. Chilled wine and candied pastries.’ ‘The birds sing of imprisonment, Samar Dev. The soap is churned by indentured workers with bleached, blistered hands and hacking coughs. Outside your cool house with its pretty garden there are children left to wander in the streets. Lepers are dragged to the edge of the city and every step is cheered on by a hail of stones. People steal to eat and when they are caught their hands are cut off. Your city takes water from farms and plants wither and animals die.’ She glared across at him. ‘Nice way to turn the mood, Karsa Orlong.’ ‘There was a mood?’ ‘Too subtle, was it?’

She tugged on the rings attached to the iron rails and managed to pull herself yet closer, enough to dip her head down beside his, and in the half-sheltered cave their arms created her voice seemed to come from his own skull. ‘I thought you were dead! So pale, like a damned cadaver!’ And this left her convulsed with laughter? ‘I damn well wish I was!’ he shouted back. ‘We’ve known worse!’ Now, he’d heard that a dozen times since this venture began, and he had begun to suspect it was one of those perfect lies that people voiced to stay sane no matter what madness they found themselves in. ‘Has Quell ever done anything like this before?’ ‘Like what? This is the Trygalle Trade Guild, shareholder! This is what we do, man!’

Some madness had afflicted her, like the spurt and gush of a nicked artery – there could be no other cause. Madness it had been. Insanity, to have flung away so much. Of what he offered her. So much, yes, of him. Or so he had told himself at the time, and for decades thereafter. It had been easier that way. He knew now why she had taken her own life. To be offered everything was to be shown what she herself was capable of – the depthless reach of her potential depravity, the horrors she would entertain, the plucking away of every last filament of sensitivity, leaving her conscience smooth, cool to the touch, a thing maybe alive, maybe not, a thing nothing could prod awake. She had seen, yes, just how far she might take herself…and had then said no.

Nimander well remembered every conversation among his followers, his siblings, his family, and remembered too how they could repeat themselves, with scant variation, if all the cues were triggered in the right sequence.

‘That bear,’ said Traveller, ‘was a god.’ Karsa spat into the fire. ‘No wonder I have never before seen such a beast.’ ‘They once existed,’ said Traveller. ‘They once ruled these plains, until all that they hunted was taken from them, and so they vanished, as have so many other proud creatures.’ ‘The god should have followed them,’ said Karsa. ‘There are too many faces of war as it is.’ Samar Dev grunted. ‘That’s rich coming from you.’ Karsa eyed her over the flames, and then grinned, the crazed tattoos seeming to split wide open on his face. ‘There need be only one.’

Coll looked shamefaced. Kruppe rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. And all at once the councillor was weeping, so broken that to bear witness was to break deep within oneself. Rallick turned away then, both hands lifting to his face. Survivors do not mourn together. They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation. None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve. To face death is to stand alone.

Much farther down the road, Cutter rides on a horse stolen from Coll’s stable. His chest is filled with ashes, his heart a cold stone buried deep. He drew a breath, sometime earlier that day, filled with love. And then released it, black with grief. Both seem to be gone now, vanished within him, perhaps never to return. And yet, hovering there before his mind’s eye, he sees a woman. Ghostly, wrapped in black, dark eyes fixed upon his own. Not this path, my love. He shakes his head at her words. Shakes his head. Not my path, my love. But he rides on. I will give you my breath, my love. To hold. Hold it for me, as I hold yours. Turn back. Cutter shakes his head again. ‘You left me.’ No, I gave you a choice, and the choice remains. My love, I gave you a place to come to, when you are ready. Find me. Come find me. ‘This first.’ Take my breath. But not this one, not this one. ‘Too late, Apsalar. It was always too late.’

The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief. But there are other anguishes, many others. They unfold as they will, and to dwell within them is to understand nothing. Except, perhaps, this. In love, grief is a promise. As sure as Hood’s nod. There will be many gardens, but this last one to visit is so very still. Not meant for lovers. Not meant for dreamers. Meant only for a single figure, there in the dark, standing alone. Taking a single breath.

‘If you say so,’ said Master Quell. ‘I’m still uneasy.’ ‘You have few other options, Wizard. The carriage is damaged. The marital argument is even now extending beyond the town’s limits and will soon engulf this entire island in a conflagration of disputing versions of who-said-what.’ ‘He’s smarter than he was before,’ observed Faint. ‘That’s true,’ said Reccanto. ‘I gather more of myself, yes,’ said Cartographer, giving them all another ghastly smile. Flinches all round. ‘How come,’ asked Quell, ‘you never showed this talent before?’ The corpse straightened. ‘I have displayed numerous talents on this journey, each one appropriate to the situation at the time. Have you forgotten the coconuts?’ Faint rolled her eyes and said, ‘How could we forget the coconuts?’

There comes a time when a man must truncate his ambitions, cut them right down, not to what was possible, but to what was manageable. And, as one grew older and more worn down, manageable became a notion blurring with minimal, as in how could a man exist with the minimum of effort? How little was good enough?

Howls rose like madness unleashed. The Son of Darkness reached up and unsheathed Dragnipur. Steam curled from the black blade, twisting into ephemeral chains that stretched out as he walked up the wide, empty street. Stretched out to drag behind him, and from each length others emerged and from these still more, a forest’s worth of iron roots, snaking out, whispering over the cobbles. He had never invited such a manifestation before. Reining in that bleed of power had been an act of mercy, to all those who might witness it, who might comprehend its significance. But on this night, Anomander Rake had other things on his mind. Chains of smoke, chains and chains and chains, so many writhing in his wake that they filled the breadth of the street, that they snaked over and under and spilled out into side streets, alleys, beneath estate gates, beneath doors and through windows. They climbed walls. Wooden barriers disintegrated – doors and sills and gates and window frames. Stones cracked, bricks spat mortar. Walls bowed. Buildings groaned. He walked on as those chains grew taut. No need yet to lean forward with each step. No need yet to reveal a single detail to betray the strength and the will demanded of him. He walked on.

‘You do not understand,’ the Tiste Andii said. ‘You never did, Kallor.’ ‘You’re wrong. I have nothing against any of you!’ ‘Korlat—’ ‘Did you think it was my intention to murder Whiskeyjack? Do you think I just cut down honourable men and loyal soldiers out of spite? You weren’t even there! It was Silverfox who needed to die, and that is a failure we shall all one day come to rue. Mark my words. Ah, gods, Spinnock. They got in my way, damn you! Just as you’re doing now!’ Spinnock sighed. ‘It seems there will be no mulled wine this night.’ ‘Don’t.’ ‘I am here, High King, to stand in your way.’ ‘You will die. I cannot stay my hand – everything will be beyond control by then. Spinnock Durav, please! This does not need to happen.’ The Tiste Andii’s faint smile nearly broke Kallor’s heart. No, he understands. All too well. This will be his last battle, in Rake’s name, in anyone’s name. Kallor drew out his sword. ‘Does it occur, to any of you, what these things do to me? No, of course not. The High King is cursed to fail, but never to fall. The High King is but…what? Oh, the physical manifestation of ambition. Walking proof of its inevitable price. Fine.’ He readied his two-handed weapon. ‘Fuck you, too.’ With a roar that ripped like fire from his throat, Kallor charged forward, and swung his sword. Iron rang on iron.

Draconus staggered up. ‘Pearl, my friend, I have come to say goodbye. And to tell you I am sorry.’ ‘What saddens you?’ the demon asked. ‘I am sorry, Pearl, for all of this. For Dragnipur. For the horror forged by my own hands. It was fitting, was it not, that the weapon claimed its maker? I think, yes, it was. It was.’ He paused, and then brought both hands up to his face. For a moment it seemed he would begin clawing his beard from the skin beneath it. Instead, the shackled hands fell away, down, dragged by the weight of the chains. ‘I too am sorry,’ said Pearl. ‘To see the end of this.’ ‘What?’ ‘So many enemies, all here and not one by choice. Enemies, and yet working together for so long. It was a wondrous thing, was it not, Draconus? When necessity forced each hand to clasp, to work as one. A wondrous thing.’ The warrior stared at the demon. He seemed unable to speak.

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.’

He lost his grip on the reins, and almost pitched from the saddle as the horse galloped away from the front line of the Bridgeburners. He loosed a stream of curses – he wanted to die at their sides, he needed to – no, he was not one of them, he could not match their power, their ascendant ferocity – he had seen Trotts there, and Detoran. And so many others, and there was Iskar Jarak himself, although why Whiskeyjack had come to prefer some Seven Cities name – in place of his real one – made no sense to Toc. Not that he was of any stature to actually ask the man – gods, even had he been, he couldn’t have got close, so tightly were the Bridgeburners arrayed around the soldier.