Toll the Hounds

In a duelling school, long after the last of the young students had toddled out, Murillio sat under moonlight with Stonny Menackis as, weeping, she unburdened herself to this veritable stranger-which perhaps is what made it all so easy-but Stonny had no experience with a man such as Murillio, who understood what it was to listen, to bestow rapt, thorough and most genuine attention solely upon one woman, to draw all of her essence-so pouring out-into his own being, as might a hummingbird drinking nectar, or a bat a cow’s ankle blood (although this analogy ill serves the tender moment).



And so between them unseen vapours waft, animal and undeniable, and so much seeps into flesh and bone and self that stunning recognition comes-when it comes-like the unlocking of a door once thought sealed for ever more.



She wept and she wept often, and each time it was somehow easier, somehow more natural, more comfortable and acceptable, no different, truly, from the soft stroke of his fingers through her short hair, the way the tips brushed her cheek to smooth away the tears-and oh, who then could be surprised by all this?



To the present, then, as the blurred moon, now risen, squints down upon a score of figures gathering on a rooftop. Exchanging hand signals and muttering instructions and advice. Checking weapons. A full score, for the targets were tough, mean, veterans with foreign ways. And the assault to come, well, it would be brutal, unsubtle, and, without doubt, thorough.



The usual crowd in K’rul’s Bar, a dozen or so denizens choosing to be unmindful of the temple that once was-these quarried stone walls, stained with smoke and mute repositories for human voices generation upon generation, from droning chants and choral music to the howl of drunken laughter and the squeals of pinched women, these walls, then, thick and solid, ever hold to indifference in the face of drama.



Lives play out, lives parcel out portions framed by stone and wood, by tile and rafter, and each of these insensate forms have, in their time, tasted blood.



The vast, low-ceilinged main taproom with its sunken floor was once a transept or perhaps a congregation area. The narrow corridor between inset pillars along the back was once a colonnade bearing niches on which, long ago, stood funerary urns containing the charred, ashen remains of High Priests and Priestesses. The kitchen and the three storerooms behind it had once supplied sustenance to monks and the sanctioned blade-wielders, scribes and acolytes. Now they fed patrons, staff and owners.



Up the steep, saddled, stone steps to the landing on the upper floor, from which ran passages with sharply angled ceilings, three sides of a square with the fourth interrupted by the front facade of the building. Eight cell-like rooms fed off each of these passages, those on the back side projecting inward (supported by the pillars of the main floor colonnade) while the two to either side had their rooms against the building’s outer walls (thus providing windows). The cells looking out on to the taproom had had inside walls knocked out, so that eight rooms were now three rooms, constituting the offices. The interior windows were now shuttered-no glass or skin-and Picker was in the habit Or throwing them wide open when she sat at her desk, giving her a clear view of the front third of the taproom, including the entranceway.



On this night, there were few guests resident in the inn’s rooms. Barathol and Chaur had not yet returned. Scillara had taken Duiker into the Daru District. The bard was on the low dais in the taproom, plunking some airy, despondent melody that few of the twenty or so patrons listened to with anything approaching attention. A stranger from Pale had taken a corner room on the northeast corner and had retired early after a meagre meal and a single pint of Gredfallan ale.



Picker could see Blend at her station beside the front door, sunk in shadows as she sat, legs outstretched, her hands cradling a mug of hot cider-bizarre tastes, that woman, since it was sultry and steamy this night. People entering rarely even noticed her, marching right past without a glance down. Blend’s talent, aye, and who could say if it was natural or something else.



Antsy was yelling in the kitchen. He’d gone in there to calm down the two cooks-who despised each other-and it turned out as it usually did, with Antsy at war with everyone, including the scullions and the rats cowering beneath the counter. In a short while utensils would start flying and Picker would have to drag herself down there.



Bluepearl was… somewhere. It was his habit to wander off, exploring the darker crooks and crannies of the old temple.



A night, then, no different from any other.



Bluepearl found himself in the cellar. Funny how often that happened. He had dragged out the fourth dusty cask from the crawlspace behind the wooden shelves. The first three he had sampled earlier in the week. Two had been vinegar, from which he could manage only a few swallows at a time. The other had been something thick and tarry, smelling of cedar or perhaps pine sap-in any case, he’d done little more than dip a finger in, finding the taste even fouler than the smell.