Toll the Hounds

Ganoes! Captain-listen, fust concentrate back on me.



‘ - not the time, Corporal. We’ve landed in a mess. But listen, if you can get word to them, try. Warn them, Picker. Warn them off.’



Captain-someone’s after the temple-K’rul’s Temple. Someone’s trying to kill us -



‘- jhistan can take care of itself, Pick. Baruk knows what to do-trust him. You need to find out who wants it. Talk to Kruppe. Talk to the Eel. But listen-pass on my warning, please.’



Pass it on to who? Who are you talking about, Captain? And what was that about Kruppe?



The image shredded before her eyes, and she felt something like claws tear into her mind. Screaming, she sought to reel back, pull away. The claws sank deeper, and all at once Picker realized that there was intent, there was malice. Something had arrived, and it wanted her.



Shrieking, she felt herself being dragged forward, into a swirling madness, into the maw of something vast and hungry, something that wanted to feed on her. For a long, long time, until her soul was gone, devoured, until nothing of her was left.



Pressure and darkness on all sides, ripping into her. She could not move.



In the midst of the savage chaos, she felt and heard the arrival of a third presence, a force flowing like a beast to draw up near her-she sensed sudden attention, a cold-eyed regard, and a voice murmured close, ‘Not here. Not now. There were torcs once, that you carried. There was a debt, still unpaid. Not now. Not here,’



The beast pounced.



Whatever had grasped hold of Picker, whatever was now feeding on her, sud-denly roared In pain, in fury, and the claws tore free, slashed against its new at-tiicker.



Snarls, the air trembling to thunder as two leviathans clashed.



Dwarfed, forgotten, small as an ant, Picker crawled away, leaking out her life in a crimson trail. She was weeping, shivering in the aftermath of the thing’s feed-ing. It had been so… intractable, so horribly… indifferent. To who she was, to her right to her own life. My soul… my soul was… food. That’s all. Abyss



She needed to find a way out. All round her chaos swarmed and shivered as the great forces battled on, there in her wake. She needed to tell Antsy things, important things. Kruppe. Baruk. And perhaps the most important detail of all. When they’d walked into the House, she had seen that the two bodies that had been lying on the floor on her last visit were gone. Gone. Two assassins, said Paran.



And one of them was Vorcan. She’s in the city. She’s out there, Antsy-Concentrate! The room. In the tower-find the room -Crawling, weeping. Lost.



Antsy loosed a dozen curses when Raest dragged Picker’s unconscious body on to the landing. ‘What did you do?’



‘Alas,’ the Jaghut said, stepping back as Antsy fell to his knees beside the woman, ‘my warnings of the risk were insufficient.’



As Antsy set his hand upon Picker’s brow he hissed and snatched it back. ‘She’s ice cold!’



‘Yet her heart struggles on,’ Raest said.



‘Will she come back? Raest, you damned lich! Will she come back?’



‘I don’t know. She spoke, for a time, before the situation… changed. Presum-ably, she was speaking to Ganoes Paran.’



‘ ‘What did she say?’



‘Questions, for the most part. I was able, however, to glean a single name. Kruppe.’



Antsy bared his teeth. He set his hand again upon her forehead. Slightly warmer? Possibly, or this time he’d been expecting it, making it less of a shock. Hard to tell which. ‘Help me get her back downstairs,’ he said.



‘Of course. And now, in return for my assistance, I will tell you what I seek from you.’



He glared up at the Jaghut. ‘You can’t be serious.’



‘This time, I am, Sergeant Antsy. I wish to have a cat.’



A cult. ‘To eat?’



‘No, as a pet. It will have to be a dead cat, of course. Now, permit me to take her legs, whilst you take her arms. Perhaps some time before the hearth will re-vive her.’



‘Do you think so?’



‘No.’



This had all been his idea, and now look at what had happened. ‘Picker,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’



‘A white one,’ said Raest.



‘What?’



‘A white cat. A dead white cat, Sergeant.’



Oh, aye, Raest. One stuffed lumpy with cussers. Here, catch, you damned bastard.



Shit, we’re down to two now. Down to two…



‘Never bargain with the dead. They want what you have and will give you what they have to get it. Your life for their death. Being dead, of course, whatever life they grab hold of just ends up slipping through their bony fingers. So you both lose.’