Toll the Hounds

‘He means,’ said Hood, ‘we now come to the final act in this bargain. He has been true to his word, but now what comes is out of his hands. He wrought a promise, yes, but will that suffice?’

‘Shame on you, Hood,’ said Iskar Jarak, gathering up the reins. ‘There is not a fool out there who would betray the Son of Darkness, not in this, not even now-though he has left us, though he has returned to his Mother’s realm.’

‘You chastise me, Iskar Jarak?’

‘I do.’

The Jaghut snorted. ‘Accepted,’ he said.

Barathol sat on the cobbles, feeling as if every bone in his body was fractured, as if every muscle was bruised. He wanted to throw up, but struggled against the im-pulse, lest the convulsions kill him. He glanced yet again at that sprawled corpse with the sword embedded in its face and skull. He could see the broad, deep punc-ture wounds on one thigh, where the Hound had picked it up. No blood leaked from them.

Antsy came over and crouched down. ‘Look at what we run into here. There’s beast blood everywhere, and you, y’damned idiot, you stood down one of them monsters-with a damned axe!’

‘Help me up, will you?’

Antsy stared, then sighed. ‘We’d need the ox for that-you’re big as a bhederin. Fine, I’ll squat here and you try using me like I was a ladder, but don’t blame me if my knees buckle.’

Another carriage had drawn up a short time earlier, and before it stood the High Alchemist Baruk-the one who’d turned them away-and beside him a warrior with Barghast blood, an enormous hammer strapped to his back. This one walked up to stare down at the dead Tiste Andii.

Barathol pulled himself upright, Antsy grunting under his weight, and then straightened with a soft word of thanks. He glanced over to study the others still remaining. The Toblakai warrior and the woman who seemed to be his companion. The two other Toblakai, young women-possibly even children-who might have been sisters, and a large dog bearing more scars than seemed possible. Great Ravens still lined the roof edges, or huddled like black, demonic gnomes on the street itself, silent as wraiths.

The dawn’s golden sunlight streamed through the smoke hanging over the city, and he could hear nothing of the normal wakening bustle that should have already begun filling Darujhistan’s streets.

Beyond this immediate gathering, others were appearing. Citizens, guards, blank-faced and empty of words, numb as refugees, none drawing too close but seemingly unwilling to leave.

The High Alchemist was standing a respectful distance away from the Barghast and the dead Tiste Andii, watching with sorrow-filled eyes. He then spoke, ‘Caladan Brood, what he sought must-’

‘Wait,’ rumbled the Barghast. ‘It must wait.’ He bent down then, reached out and grasped hold of the black-bladed sword. And, with little ceremony, he worked the weapon loose, and then straightened once more.

It seemed everyone present held their breath.

Caladan Brood stared down at the weapon in his hands. Then, Barathol saw, the warrior’s mouth twisted into a faint snarl, filed teeth gleaming. And he turned round and walked to the carriage, where he opened the side door and tossed the sword inside. It clanged, thumped. The door clicked shut.

The Barghast glared about, and then pointed. ‘That ox and cart.’

‘Caladan-’

‘I will have my way here, Baruk.’ His bestial eyes found Barathol. ‘You, help me with him.’

Barathol bit back every groan as he took hold of the Tiste Andii’s feet, watching as Brood forced his hands beneath the corpse’s shoulders, down under the arms. Together, they lifted the body.

Antsy had brought the cart close and he now stood beside the ox, his expression miserable.

They laid the body of Anomander Rake on the slatted bed with its old blood stains. Brood leaned over it for a long moment. And then he drew himself upright once more and faced the High Alchemist. ‘I shall build him a barrow. West of the city,’

‘Caladan, please, that can wait. We have to-’

‘No.’ He moved to where Antsy stood and with one hand pushed the Falari away from the ox, grasping hold of the yoke. ‘I will do this. None other need be burdened with this journey. It shall be Caladan Brood and Anomander Rake, together one last time.’

And so the ox began its fateful walk. A warrior at its side, the corpse of another in the cart.

The procession was forced to halt but once, not ten paces from where it started, as a short, round man in a red waistcoat had positioned himself directly in its path. Caladan Brood looked up, frowned.

The short, round man then, with surprising grace, bowed, before backing to one side.

Brood said nothing, simply tugging the ox into motion once again.

It was said that he had saved Darujhistan. Once, years ago, and now again. The Lord of Moon’s Spawn, who on this night brought darkness down, darkness and cold, down upon the raging fires. Who somehow crushed the life from a growing conflagration of destruction. Saving the lives of everyone. It was said he single-handedly banished the demon Hounds. It was said, upon the instant of his death, the heart of the moon broke. And proof of that still lingered in the sky.

Who killed him? No one was sure. Rumours of Vorcan’s return fuelled specula-tion of some vicious betrayal. A Malazan contract. A god’s blind rage. But clearly it was fated, that death, for did not the worshippers of Dessembrae emerge from their temple last night? Was that not a time for the Lord of Tragedy? Oh, but it was, yes, it surely was.

And so, unbidden, people came out on to the streets. They lined the route taken by Caladan Brood to await his passing, the warrior, the ox, the cart. And when he did, he was watched in silence; and when the procession had passed, the people fell into his wake, becoming a river of humanity.

On this morning, Darujhistan was like no other city. No hawkers called out their wares. Market stalls remained shut. No fisher boats slipped their moorings and set out on the mirror waters of the lake. Looms stayed motionless, spindles un-spun. And, from every temple, bells began their toll. Discordant, sonorous, building like a broken echo, as if the city itself had found a voice, and that voice, so filled with the chaos of grief, would now speak for every citizen, for the priests and priestesses, for the very gods in their temples.

Amidst the clanging bells, Great Ravens rose into the smoky sky, wheeling above rooftops, forming a caterwauling, grisly escort. At first there were but hun dreds, and then there were thousands. Swirling in a mass, as if drawn to deliver darkness to Darujhistan, as if to shroud the body below.

And, just beyond Worrytown, ascending the first of the Gadrobi Hills, a lone swordsman paused and half turned a ravaged face to the fretful music of those bells, those birds, and whatever might have been there, in his eyes, well, there was no one to witness it.

And so he set his back to Darujhistan and resumed his journey. That he had nowhere to go, at least for the moment, was without relevance. Solitude finds its own path, for the one who will not share burdens. And loneliness is no fit com-panion for the eternally lost, but it is the only one they know.

At this moment, another lone figure, clad in chain, sat in a tavern in Worry-town. The notion of witnessing the procession in the city was proving too… unpalatable. Kallor despised funerals. Celebrations of failure. Wallowing in pathos. Every living soul standing there forced to stare into mortality’s gri

He preferred kicking that piss-gri

The tavern was empty, since it seemed no one else shared his sentiments, and that was fine with him. It had always been fine with him.

Or so he told himself, as he stared down into his stolen tankard of bad ale, and listened to those infernal bells and those oversized vultures. And that chorus was hauntingly familiar. Death, ruin, grief. ‘Hear that?’ he said to his tankard. ‘They’re playing our song.’