Toll the Hounds

He heard her stumbling back the way she had come.



‘That was long enough.’



Seerdomin turned his head, saw the Redeemer standing close. Not a large man. Not in any way particularly impressive. Hard enough, to be sure, revealing his profession as a soldier, but otherwise unremarkable. ‘What made you what you are?’ he asked-or tried to-his mouth filled with blood that frothed and spat-tered with every word.



The Redeemer understood him none the less. ‘I don’t know. We may possess ambition, and with it a self-image both grandiose and posturing, but ‘they are empty things in the end.’ Then he smiled. ‘I do not recall being such a man.’



‘Why did she leave, Redeemer?’



The answer was long in coming. ‘You had help, I believe. And no, I do not know what will come of that. Can you wait? I may need you again.’



Seerdomin managed a laugh. ‘Like this?’



‘I cannot heal you. But I do not think you will… cease. Yours is a strong soul, Seerdomin. May I sit down beside you? It has been a long time since I last had someone to speak to.’



Well, here I bleed. But there is no pain. ‘As long as I can,’ he said, ‘you will have someone to speak to.’



The Redeemer looked away then, so that Seerdomin could not see his sudden tears.



‘He didn’t make it,’ Monkrat said, straightening.



Gradithan glowered down at Seerdomin’s corpse. ‘We were so close, too. I don’t understand what’s happened, I don’t understand at all.’



He turned slightly and studied the High Priestess where she knelt on the muddy floor of the tent. Her face was slack, black drool hanging from her mouth, ‘She used it up. Too soon, too fast, 1 think, All that wasted blood…’



Monkrat cleared his throat. ‘The visions-’



‘Nothing now,’ Gradithan snapped. ‘Find some more kelyk.’



At that Salind’s head lifted, a sudden thirst burning in her eyes. Seeing this, Gradithan laughed. ‘Ah, see how she worships now. An end to all those doubts. One day, Monkrat, everyone will be like her. Saved.’



Monkrat seemed to hesitate.



Gradithan turned back and spat on to Seerdomin’s motionless, pallid visage. ‘Even you, Monkrat,’ he said. ‘Even you.’



‘Would you have me surrender my talents as a mage, Urdo?’



‘Not yet. But yes, one day, you will do that. Without regrets.’



Monkrat set off to find another cask of kelyk.



Gradithan walked over to Salind. He crouched in front of her, leaned forward to lick the drool from her lips. ‘We’ll dance together,’ he said. ‘Are you eager for that?’



He saw the answer in her eyes.



High atop the tower, in the moment that Silanah stirred-cold eyes fixed upon the pilgrim encampment beyond the veil of Night-Anomander Rake had reached out to still her with the lightest of touches.



‘Not this time, my love,’ he said in a murmur. ‘Soon. You will know.’



Slowly, the enormous dragon settled once more, eyes closing to the thinnest of slits.



The Son of Darkness let his hand remain, resting there on her cool, scaled neck. ‘Do not fear,’ he said, ‘I will not restrain you next time.’



He sensed the departure of Spinnock Durav, on a small fast cutter into the Ort-nal beyond Nightwater. Perhaps the journey would serve him well, a distance ever stretching between the warrior and what haunted him.



And he sensed, too, the approach of Endest Silann down along the banks of the river, his oldest friend, who had one more task ahead of him. A most difficult one.



But these were difficult times, he reflected.



Anomander Rake left Silanah then, beneath Darkness that never broke.



North and west of Bastion, Kallor walked an empty road.



He had found nothing worthwhile in Bastion. The pathetic remnant of one of Nightchill’s lovers, a reminder of curses voiced long ago, a reminder of how time twisted everything, like a rope binding into ever tighter knots and kinks. Until what should have been straight was now a tangled, useless mess.



Ahead awaited a throne, a new throne, one that he deserved. He believed it was taking shape, becoming something truly corporeal. Raw power, brimming with unfulfilled promise.



But the emergence of the throne was not the only thing awaiting him, and he sensed well that much at least. A convergence, yes, yet another of those confounded cusps, when powers drew together, when unforeseen paths suddenly intersected. When all of existence could change in a single moment, in the solitary cut of a sword, in a word spoken or a word left unspoken.