Toll the Hounds

Although she was not yet aware of them, four spots of gangrene were spreading across her forehead-she could smell something foul, horribly foul, as thoughsomeone had dropped something in passing, somewhere close; she just couldn’t see it yet. The pain of her broken hip was now a throbbing thing, a deadweight she dragged behind her, growing ever more distant in her mind.



We run from our place of wounding. No different from any other beast, we run from our place of wounding. Run, or crawl, crawl or drag, drag or reach. She realized that even such efforts had failed her. She was broken everywhere. She was dying.



See me! I have been blessed. He has blessed me.



Bless you all.



He could barely stand, and now he must duel. Murillio untied his coin pouch and tossed it towards the foreman who had just returned, gasping and red-faced. The bag landed in a cloud of dust, a heavy thud. ‘I came for the boy,’ Murillio said. ‘That’s more than he’s worth-do you accept the payment, foreman?’



‘He does not,’ said Gorlas. ‘No, I have something special in mind for little Harllo.’



‘He’s not part of any of this-’



‘You just made him so, Murillio. One of your clan, maybe even a whelp of one of your useless friends in the Phoenix Inn-your favoured hangout, yes? Hanut knows everything there is to know about you. No, the boy’s in this, and that’s why you won’t have him. I will, to do with as I please.’



Murillio drew his rapier. ‘What makes people like you, Gorlas?’



‘I could well ask the same of you.’



Well, a lifetime of mistakes. And so we are perhaps more alike than either of us would care to admit. He saw the foreman bend down to collect the purse. The odious man hefted it and grinned. ‘About those interest payments, Councillor…’



Gorlas smiled. ‘Why, it seems you can clear your debt after all.’



Murillio assumed his stance, point extended, sword arm bent slightly at the elbow, left shoulder thrown back to reduce the plane of his exposed torso. He settled his weight, gingerly, down through the centre of his hips.



Smiling still, Gorlas Vidikas moved into a matching pose, although he was leaning slightly forward. Not a duellist ready to retreat, then. Murillio recalled that from the fight he’d seen the very end of, the way Gorlas would not step back, unwilling to yield ground, unwilling to accept that sometimes pulling away earned advantages. No, he would push, and push, surrendering nothing.



He rapped Murillio’s blade with his own, a contemptuous batting aside to gauge response.



There was none. Murillio simply resumed his line.



Gorlas probed with the rapier’s point, jabbing here and there round the bell hilt, teasing and gambling with the quillons that could trap his blade, but for Murillio to do so he would have to twist and fold his wrist-not much, but enough for Gorlas to make a darting thrust into the opened guard, and so Murillio let the man play with that. He was in no hurry; footsore and weary as he was, he suspected he would have but one solid chance, sooner or later, to end this, Point to lead kneecap, or down to lead hoot, or a flicking slash into wrist tendons, crip pling the sword arm possibly for ever, Or higher, into the shoulder, stop hitting a lunge.



Gorlas pressed, closing the distance, and Murillio stepped hack.



And that hurt.



He could feel wetness in his boots, that wretched clear liquid oozing out from the broken blisters.



‘I think,’ ventured Gorlas, ‘there’s something wrong with your feet, Murillio. You move like a man standing on nails.’



Murillio shrugged. He was past conversation it was hard enough concentrating through the stabs of pain.



‘Such an old-style stance you have, old man. So… upright.’ Gorlas resumed the flitting, wavering motions of his rapier, minute threats here and there. He had begun a rhythmic rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, attempting to lull Murillio into that motion.



When he finally launched into his attack, the move was explosive, lightning last.



Murillio tracked the feints, caught and parried the lunge, and snapped out a riposte-but he was stepping back as he did so, and his point snipped the cloth of Gorlas’s sleeve. Before he could ready himself, the younger duellist extended his attack with a hard parrying beat and then a second lunge, throwing his upper body far forward-closing enough to make Murillio’s retreat insufficient, as was his parry.



Sizzling fire in his left shoulder. Staggering back, the motion tugging the point free of his flesh, Murillio righted himself and then straightened. ‘Blood drawn,’ he said, voice tightened by pain.



‘Oh, that,’ said Gorlas, resuming his rocking motion once more, ‘I’ve changed my mind.’