Toll the Hounds

This was worse than any demise he might imagine. As bad as some unseen disease-the sheer helplessness of discovering that one’s own body could fail all on its own. He could not even roar to the heavens with his last breath-the gesture would flood his mouth, leave him choking, defiance flung straight back at him, right back down his own throat.



More screaming-laughter? No, this was screaming.



What now?



Gruntle snatched a breath and then looked up.



Walls of water on all sides-he flinched-and then a swell heaved them skyward, the carriage twisting, pitching. Rings squealed as he was tossed up, until sharp, savage tugs from the straps snatched him back down.



But he had seen-yes-all his companions-their wide eyes, their gaping mouths-and he had seen, too, the object of their terror.



They were racing, faster than any wave, straight for a towering cliff face.



‘Land ho!’ shrieked Glanno Tarp from his perch. Explosions of foam at the cliff’s base appeared with every lift of the waves. fagged spires of black rock, reefs, shoals and all those other names for killers of people and ships. And carriages. All looming directly ahead, a third of a league away and closing fast.



Can those horses climb straight up a cliff face? Sounds ridiculous-but 1 won’t put it past them. Not any more.



Even so, why is everyone screaming?



A moment later Gruntle had his answer. Another upward pitch, and this time he twisted round and glanced back, into their wake-no reason, at least, he didn’t think there was, but the view, surely, could not be as horrifying as what lay ahead.



And he saw another wall of water, this one high as a damned mountain.



Its sickly green flank picked up the carriage and then the horses, and began carrying them into the sky. So fast that the water streamed from the roof, from every flattened shareholder, and even the rain vanished as higher they went, into the gut of the clouds.



He thought, if he dared open his eyes, he would see stars, the ferment above, to the sides, and indeed below-but Gruntle’s nerve had failed him. He clung, eyes squeezed shut, flesh dry and shivering in the bitter cold of the wind.



More sound than a mortal brain could comprehend-thunder from beneath, animal squeals and human shrieks, the swollen thrash of blood in every vein, every artery, the hollow howl of wind in his gaping mouth.



Higher, and higher still-



And wasn’t there a cliff dead ahead?



He could not look.



Everyone thought that Reccanto Ilk was the one with the bad eyes, and that was a most pleasing misindirection as far as Glanno Tarp was concerned. Besides, he was fine enough with things within, oh, thirty or so paces. Beyond that, objects acquired a soft-edged dissolidity, became blocks of vague shape, and the challenge was in gauging the speed at which they approached, and, from this, their distance and relative size. The carriage driver had taken this to a fine art indeed, with no one the wiser.



Which, in this instance at least, was of no help at all.



He could hear everyone screaming behind him, and he was adding plenty all on his own, even as the thought flashed in his mind that Reccanto Ilk was probably shrieking in ignorance-simply because everyone else was-but the looming mass of the rotted cliff-face was a most undenimissable presence, and my how big it was getting!



The horses could do naught but run, in what must have seemed downhill for the hapless beasts, even as the wave’s surge reared ever higher-all sorts of mas-somentum going on here, Glanno knew, and no quibblering about it, either.



What with pitch and angle and cant and all that, Glanno could now see the top of the cliff, a guano-streaked lip all wavy and grimacing. Odd vertical streaks depended down from the edge-what were those? Could be? Ladders? How strange.



Higher still, view expandering, the sweep of the summit, flat land, and globs of glimmering light like melted dollops of murky wax. Something towering, a spire, a tower yes, a towering tower, with jagged-teeth windows high up, blinking in and out-all directly opposite now, almost level-



Something pounded the air, pounded right into his bones, rattling the roots of his insipid or was it inspired grin-something that tore the wave apart, an upward charging of spume, a world splashed white, engulfing the horses, the carriage, and Glanno himself.



His mouth was suddenly full of seawater. His eyes stared through stinging salt. His ears popped like berries between finger and thumb, ploop ploop. And oh, that hurt!



The water rushed past, wiping clean the world-and there, before him-were those buildings?



Horses were clever. Horses weren’t half blind. They could find something, a street, a way through, and why not? Clever horses.



‘ Yeaagh!’ Glanno thrashed the reins.