Toll the Hounds

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 ru

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 Ghe

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 Shorn’s damned cousin’s talent for antic-ipating 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.

Rest easy for the next few moments, for there is more to tell.

Iskaral Pust rode like a madman. Unfortunately, the mule beneath him had decided that a plodding walk would suffice, making the two of them a most incongruous pair. The High Priest flung himself back and forth, pitched from side to side. His feet kicked high, toes skyward, then lashed back down. Heels pounded insensate flanks in a thumping drumroll entirely devoid of rhythm. Reins flailed about but the mule had chewed through the bit and so the reins were attached to nothing but two mangled stumps that seemed determined to batter Pust senseless.

He tossed about as if riding a goaded bull. Spraying sweat, lips pulled back in a savage grimace, the whites visible round his bugged-out eyes.

The mule, why, the mule walked. Clump clump (pause) clump (pause) clump clump. And so on.

Swirling just above Iskaral Pust’s head, and acrobatically avoiding the bit-ends, flapped the squall of bhokarala. Like oversized gnats, and how that mule’s tail whipped back and forth! She sought to swat them away, but in the spirit of gnat-hood the bhokarala did not relent, so eager were they to claim the very next plop of dung wending its way out beneath that tail. Over which they’d fight tooth, talon and claw.

Swarming in mule and rider’s wake was a river of spiders, flowing glittering black over the cobbles.

At one point three white Hounds tramped across the street not twenty paces distant. A trio of immensely ugly heads swung to regard mule and rider. And to show that it meant business, the mule propped up its ears. Clump clump (pause) clump clump clump.

The Hounds moved on.

It does no good to molest a mule.

Alas, as Iskaral Pust and his placid mount were moments from discovering, there were indeed forces in the world that could confound both.

And here then, at last, arrives the shining, blazing, astonishing nexus, the penulti-mate pi

Mule sees mule. Both halt with a bare fifteen paces between them, ears at bris-tling attention.

Rider sees rider. Magus grows dangerously still, eyes hooded. Kruppe waves one plump hand in greeting.

Bhokarala launch a midair conference that results in one beast landing awkwardly on the cobbles to the left of the High Priest, whilst the others find windowsills, projections, and the heads of handsome gargoyles on which to perch, chests heaving and tongues lolling.

The spiders run away.

Thus, the tableau is set.

‘Out of my way!’ screeched Iskaral Pust. ‘Who is this fool and how dare he fool with me? I’ll gnash him! I’ll crush him down. I’ll feint right and dodge left and we’ll be by in a flash! Look at that pathetic mule-he’ll never catch us! I got a sword to claim. Mine, yes’, mine! And then won’t Shadowthrone grovel and simper! Iskaral Pust, High Priest of Dragnipur! Most feared swordsman in ten thousand worlds! And if you think you’ve seen justice as its most fickle, you just wait!’ He then leaned forward and smiled. ‘Kind sir, could you kindly move yourself and yon beast to one side? I must keep an appointment, you understand. Hastily, in fact.’ Then he hissed, ‘Go climb up your own arse, you red-vested ball of lard that someone rolled across a forest floor! Go! Scat!’

‘Most confounding indeed,’ Kruppe replied with his most beatific smile. ‘It seems we are in discord, in that you seek to proceed in a direction that will in-evitably collide with none other than Kruppe, the Eel of Darujhistan. Poor priest, it is late. Does your god know where you are?’

‘Eel? Kruppe? Collide? Fat and an idiot besides, what a dastardly combination, and on this of all nights! Listen, take another street. If I run into this Crappy Eel I’ll be sure to let him know you’re looking for him. It’s the least I can do.’

‘Hardly, but no matter. I am Kruppe the Crappy Eel, alas.’

‘So fine, we’ve ran into each other. Glad that’s over with. Now let me pass!’

‘Kruppe regrets that any and every path you may seek shall he impeded by none other than Kruppe himself. Unless, of course, you conclude that what you seek is not worth the effort, nor the grief certain to follow, and so wisely return to thy shadowy temple’

‘You don’t know what I want so it’s none of your damned business what I want!’

‘Misapprehensions abound, but wait, does this slavering fool even understand?’

‘What? I wasn’t supposed to hear that? But I did! I did, you fat idiot!’

‘He only thought he heard. Kind priest, Kruppe assures you, you did not hear but mishear. Kind priest? Why, Kruppe is too generous, too forgiving by far, and hear hear! Or is it here here? No matter, it’s not as if this gri

Iskaral Pust stared. He gaped. His eyes darted, alighting on the bhokaral squat-ting on the cobbles beside him as it made staring, gaping, darting expressions. ‘My worshippers! Of course! You! Yes, you! Gather your kin and attack the fat fool! Attack! Your god commands you! Attack!’