Toll the Hounds

If there was a curse, a most vicious kind of curse, whereby a decent person found him or herself in inescapable servitude to a creature of pure, unmitigated evil, then Seerdomin had lived it. Decency was not exculpable. Honour pur-chased no abeyance on crimes against humanity. And as for duty, well, it increasingly seemed the sole excuse of the morally despicable. He would offer up none of these in defence of the things he had done at his master’s behest. Nor would he speak of duress, of the understandable desire to stay alive under the threat of deadly coercion. None of these was sufficient. When undeniable crimes had been committed, justification was the act of a coward. And it was our cowardice that permitted such crimes in the first place. No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no. The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.



He well understood that many people delighted in such societies-there had been fellow Seerdomin, most of them in fact, who revelled in the fear and the obedience that fear commanded. And this was what had led him here, trailing an old palace retainer of the Seer who had made his furtive way into the ruins of the old keep. No, not a looter. A sordid conspiracy was afoot, Seerdomin was certain of that. Survivors of one nightmare seeking to nurture yet another. That man would not be alone once he reached his destination.



He closed the shutter to the lantern once more and continued on.



Malazan soldiers had died here, along with the Pannion’s own. Seguleh had carved through the ranks of palace guard. Seerdomin could almost hear the echoes of that slaughter, the cries of the dying, the desperate pleading against cruel mischance, the stinging clash of weapons. He came to a set of steps leading down. Rubble had been cleared away. From somewhere below came the murmur of voices.



They had set no guard, proof of their confidence, and as he stealthily descended he could make out the glow of lanterns emanating from the cell down below.



This chamber had once been home to the one called Toc the Younger. Chained against one wall, well within reach of the Seer’s monstrous mother. Seerdomin’s paltry gifts of mercy had probably stung like droplets of acid on the poor man. Better to have left him to go entirely mad, escaping into that oblivious world where everything was so thoroughly broken that repair was impossible. He could still smell the reek of the K’Chain matron.



The voices were becoming distinguishable-three, maybe four conspirators. He could hear the excitement, the sweet glee, along with the usual self-importance, the songs of those who played games with lives-it was the same the world over, in every history, ever the same.



He had crushed down his outrage so long ago, it was a struggle to stir it into life once more, but he would need it. Sizzling, yet hard, controlled, peremptory. Three steps from the floor, still in darkness, he slowly drew out his tulwar. It did not matter what they were discussing. It did not even matter if their plans were pathetic, doomed to fail. It was the very act that awakened in Seerdomin the heart of murder, so that it now drummed through him, thunderous with contempt and disgust, ready to do what was needed.



When he first stepped into the chamber, none of the four seated at the table even noticed, permitting him to take another stride, close enough to send his broad-bladed weapon through the first face that lifted towards him, cutting it in half. His return attack was a looping backswing, chopping through the neck of the man to the right, who, in lurching upright, seemed to offer his throat to that slashing edge like a willing sacrifice. As his head tumbled away, the body stumbling as it backed over the chair, Seerdomin grasped one edge of the table and flipped it into the air, hammering it into the man on the left, who fell beneath the table’s weight. Leaving one man directly opposite Seerdomin.



Pleading eyes, a hand scrabbling at the ornate dagger at the belt, backing away-



Not nearly fast enough, as Seerdomin moved forward and swung his heavy tul-war down, cutting through the upraised forearms and carving into the man’s upper chest, through clavicle and down one side of the sternum. The edge jammed at the. fourth rib, forcing Seerdomin to kick the corpse loose. He then turned to the last conspirator.



The old palace retainer. Spittle on his lips, the reek of urine rising like steam, ‘No, please-’



‘Do you know me, Hegest?’



A quick nod. ‘A man of honour-what you have done here-’



‘Defies what you would expect of an honourable man, and it is that very expectation that frees you to scheme and plot. Alas, Hegest, your expectation was wrong. Fatally so. Black Coral is at peace, for the first time in decades-freed of terror. And yet you chafe, dreaming no doubt of your old station, of all the excesses you were privileged to possess.’