Toll the Hounds

‘How should I know?’ Samar Dev snapped.



His brows lifted higher.



‘I don’t know where those words came from. They just… arrived.’



‘They were Imass, Samar Dev.’



‘Oh?’



‘Okral is the word for a plains bear, but that was no plains bear-too big, legs too long-’



‘I would not,’ said Karsa, ‘wish to be chased by that beast, even on horseback. That animal was built for running its prey down.’



‘But it was not hunting,’ said Traveller.



‘I don’t know what it was doing,’ Karsa conceded with a loose shrug. ‘But I am glad it changed its mind.’



‘



‘From you two,’ Samar said, ’it would have sensed no fear. That alone would have made it hesitate.’ Her voice was harsh, almost flinging the words out. She was not sure why she was so angry. Perhaps naught but the aftermath of terror-a terror that neither companion had the decency to have shared with her. They made her feel… diminished.



Traveller was still studying her, and she wanted to snarl at him. When he spoke, his tone was calm. ‘The old gods of war are returning.’



‘War? The god of war? That was Fener, wasn’t it? The Boar.’



‘Fener, Togg, Fanderay, Treach, and,’ he shrugged, ‘De nek Okral-who can say how many once existed. They arose, I would imagine, dependent on the environment of the worshippers-whatever beast was supreme predator, was the most savage-’



‘But none were,’ cut in Karsa Orlong. ‘Supreme. That title belonged to us two-legged hunters, us bright-eyed killers.’



Traveller continued to stare at Samar Dev. ‘The savagery of the beasts reflected the savagery in the souls of the worshippers. In war, this is what was shared. Boar, tigers, wolves, the great bears that knew no fear.’



‘Is this what Fener’s fall has done, then?’ Samar Dev asked. ‘All the hoary, for-gotten once clambering back to fight over the spoils? And what has that to do with that bear, anyway?’



‘That bear,’ said Traveller, ‘was a god.’



Karsa spat into the fire. ‘No wonder 1 have never before seen such a beast.’



‘They once existed,’ said Traveller. ‘They once ruled these plains, until all that they hunted was taken from them, and so they vanished, as have so many other proud creatures.’



‘The god should have followed them/ said Karsa. ‘There are too many faces of war as it is.’



Samar Dev grunted. ‘That’s rich coming from you.’



Karsa eyed her over the flames, and then grinned, the crazed tattoos seeming to split wide open on his face. ‘There need be only one.’



Yours. Yes, Toblakai, I understand you well enough. ‘I have one true fear/ she said. ‘And that is, when you are done with civilization, it will turn out that you as master of everything will prove no better than the ones you pulled down. That you will find the last surviving throne and plop yourself down on it, and find it all too much to your liking.’



‘That is an empty fear, Witch,’ said Karsa Orlong. ‘I will leave not one throne to sit on-I will shatter them all. And if, when I am done, I am the last left standing-in all the world-then I will be satisfied.’



‘What of your people?’



‘I have listened too long to the whispers of Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Our ways are but clumsier versions of all the other ways in which people live-their love of waste, their eagerness to reap every living thing as if belonged to them, as if in order to prove ownership they must destroy it.’ He bared his teeth. ‘We think no differently, just slower. Less… efficiently. You will prattle on about progress, Samar Dev, but progress is not what you think it is. It is not a tool guided by our hands-not yours, not mine, not Traveller’s. It is not something we can rightly claim as our destiny. Why? Because in truth we have no control over it. Not your machines, Witch, not a hundred thousand slaves shackled to it-even as we stand with whips in hand.’



Now Traveller had turned slightly and was studying the Toblakai with that same curious wonder that she had seen before. ‘What then,’ he asked, ’is progress, Karsa Orlong?’



The Toblakai gestured into the night sky. ‘The crawl of the stars, the plunge and rise of the moon. Day, night, birth, death-progress is the passage of reality. We sit astride this horse, but it is a beast we can never tame, and it will run for ever-we will age and wither and fall off, and it cares not. Some other will leap aboard and it cares not. It may run alone, and it cares not. It outran the great bears. The wolves and their worshippers. It outran the Jaghut, and the K’Chain Che’Malle. And still it runs on, and to it we are nothing.’