Toll the Hounds

Oh, there was a lesson there, yes. At least it seemed that Murillio had heeded it, if the rumours of his “retirement” were accurate. And what about me? Have I taken note? It seems not. I still go to her, I still plunge into this betrayal. I go to her, so hungry, so desperate, it is as if we have remade ourselves into perfect reflections. Me and Challice. Hand in hand in our descent.



Because it makes the fall easier, doesn’t it?



There was nothing to stop Gorlas Vidikas from exacting vengeance. He would be entirely within his rights to hunt them both down and murder them, and a part of Cutter would not blame him if he did just that.



He was thinking such thoughts as he walked to the annexe warehouse/but they did little to assail his anticipation. Into each other’s arms again, desire hot as a fever in their mouths, their hands, their groins. Proof, to Cutter’s mind, of the claims of some scholars that humans were but animals-clever ones, but animals hone the less. There was no room for thinking, no space for rationality. Consequences thinned to ethereal ghosts, snatched in with the first gasp and flung away in the next. Only the moment mattered.



He made no effort to disguise himself, no effort to mask the destination of his journey, and he well knew how the locals around the warehouse watched him, with that glittering regard that was envy and disgust and amusement in equal parts; much as they had watched Challice perhaps only moments earlier, although in her ease lust probably warred with all the other emotions. No, this af-fair was a brazen thing, and that in itself somehow made it all the more erotic,



There was heat in his mind as he used his key to open the office door, and when he stepped within he could smell her perfume in the dusty air. Through the office and into the cavernous warehouse interior, and then to the wooden steps leading to the loft.



She must have heard his ascent, for she was standing facing the door when he arrived.



Something in her eyes stopped him.



‘You have to save me,’ she said.



‘What has happened?’



‘Promise you’ll save me, my love. Promise!’



He managed a step forward. ‘Of course. What’s-’



‘He knows.’



The heat of desire evaporated. He was suddenly cold inside.



Challice drew closer and in her face he saw an expression he struggled to iden-tify, and when he did the cold turned into ice. She is… excited.



‘He will kill you. And me. He’ll kill us both, Crokus!’



‘As is his right-’



In her eyes a sudden fear, and she fixed him with it’ for a long moment before turning round. ‘Maybe you have no problem with dying,’ she hissed as she walked to the bed, where she faced him again. ‘But I have!’



‘What do you want me to do?’



‘You know what to do.’



‘What we should do,’ he said, ’is run. Take what you can and let’s just run. Find some other city-’



‘No! I don’t want to leave here! I like it here! I like the way I live, Crokus!’



‘It was just a day or two ago, Challice, that you were lying in my arms and talking about escaping-’



‘Just dreams-that wasn’t real. I mean, the dream wasn’t real. Wasn’t realistic-just a stupid dream. You can’t take any notice of what I say after we’ve… been together. I just come out with any old thing. Crokus, we’re in trouble. We have to do something-we have to do it now.’



You just come out with any old thing, do you, Challice? But it’s only after we’ve been together that you say you love me.



‘He’ll kill me,’ she whispered.



‘That doesn’t sound like the Gorlas you’ve been describing.’



She sat down on the bed. ‘He confronted me. Yesterday.’



‘You didn’t mention-’



She shook her head. ‘It seemed, well, it seemed it was just the usual game. He said he wanted to know about you, and I said I’d tell him when he got back-he’s at the mines right now. And then, and then, walking here just now-O gods! I



suddenly understood! Don’t you see? He was asking about the man he planned la kill!’



‘So he plans to kill me. What of it, Challice?’



She bared her teeth, and it was an expression so brutal, so ugly, that Cutter was shocked. ‘I said I understood. First you. Then he’ll come back to me, so he can tell me what he did to you. In every detail? He will use every word like a knife-until he pulls out the real one. And then he’ll cut my throat.’ She looked up at him. ‘Is that what you want? Does his killing me matter to you, Crokus?’