Toll the Hounds

A flung dagger pinned his right hand to the cask. Shouting at the fiery agony, he staggered back as two assassins rushed towards him. One with a knife, the other with a long, thin-bladed sword.



The attacker with the knife was in the lead; his weapon raised.



Bluepearl spat at him.



That pearlescent globule transmogrified in the air, expanding into a writhing ball of serpents. A dozen fanged jaws struck the assassin in the face. He screamed in horror, slashing at his own face with his knife.



Bluepearl sought to drop the cask, only to have its weight tug his arm downward-his hand still pinned-and he shrieked at the burst of agony.



He had time to look up and see the sword as it was thrust into his face. Into the side of his nose, the point punching deeper, upward, driving into his forebrain.



At the threshold to the cellar, Antsy heard the scrap erupt in the taproom. Whirling round, loosing twenty curses in fourteen different languages, readjusting his grip on his shortsword. Gods, it sounded like unholy slaughter out there. He needed a damned shield!



The cooks and scullions were rushing for the back door-and all at once there were screams from the alley beyond.



Antsy plunged into the storeroom on the left. To the crate at the far end, beneath the folds of burlap. He jimmied the lid open and plucked out three, four sharpers, stuffing them beneath his shirt. A fifth one for his left hand. Then he rushed back out into the kitchen.



One cook and two scullions-both girls-were running back inside, and Antsysaw cloaked forms crowding the back door. ‘Down!’ he screamed, throwing the sharper overhand, hard, straight past the two assassins in the doorway. The sharper struck the alley wall and exploded.



He saw red mist burst round the two visible assassins, like Hood’s own haloes. They both slammed down face first. From the alley beyond, a chorus of terrible shrieks. Antsy drew out another sharper, ran to the doorway. Standing on the backs of the dead assassins, he leaned out and threw the grenado into the alley. Another snapping, fierce detonation. And there were no more cries out there.



‘Chew on that, you fuckin’ arseholes!’



Picker rolled across the floor in the wake of that first quarrel. She saw Mallet lunge into the corridor, saw the bolts take him down. Scrambling-knowing the healer was a dead man-she threw herself at the office door, slamming it shut even as footfalls rushed closer. Dropping the latch, a heartbeat before a heavy weight pounded into the solid barrier, she went to the crate at the foot of the desk.



Fumbled with the key for a moment-thundering thumps from the door behind her, mayhem in the taproom below-before working the lock free and flinging back the lid. She drew out her heavy crossbow and a clutch of quarrels.



She heard the echo of sharpers from the kitchen and grinned, but it was a cold grin.



On her feet once more, even as wood splintered on the door, she rushed back to the window-in time to see Blend knocked back by a bolt in her shoulder, and an assassin lunging after her from the doorway.



It was a damned good shot, her quarrel striking the man in the forehead, snapping his head back in a burst of blood, skull and brains.



Whirling round, she went back to the crate, found the lone sharper she’d stashed there, then back to the window, where she leapt up on to the sill, balanced in a crouch. Directly below was a table. Two bodies bled out beside it, legs tangled in the knocked-over chairs-two innocent patrons, two regulars who never did nobody any harm, good with tips, always a smile-



The door crashed open behind her. She twisted and threw the sharper, then dropped down from the sill. The crack of the grenado in the office, a gout of flames and smoke, as Picker landed on the tabletop.



It exploded beneath her. One of her knees slammed into her chin and she felt teeth crack as she fell to one side, thumping down on one of the corpses. She managed to hold on to the crossbow, although the quarrels scattered across the floor.



Spitting blood, she sat up.



Blend saw her attacker flung back, saw his head cave inward above his eyes. She crouched down, reaching up for the quarrel embedded in her left shoulder. The point was jammed into the cartilage between the bone of the upper arm and the shoulder’s sockets. Leaving it in there was probably worse than pulling the damned thing out. Gritting her teeth, she tugged the bolt free. That made her pass out.



After pushing the surviving crew in the kitchen back out into the alley-now crowded with a dozen torn-up corpses-Antsy crossed the room, collecting the iron lid of a large cauldron along the way. At the entrance leading to the taproom he found Bluepearl, dead as dead could be in a pool of ale, and just beyond him knelt an assassin who seemed to have taken his dagger to his own face, which was now a sliced, shredded, eyeless mess. He was crooning some wordless melody from deep in his throat.