Toll the Hounds

A short stay in Pale, until, fleeing yet another Malazan siege, down to Darujhistan in the midst of a decrepit column of refugees.



Whereupon Humble Measure had settled in the last surviving office of his father’s business, there to begin a long, careful rebuilding process that honed his tactical skills and, indeed, his fortitude.



Such a long, fraught journey had ensured the loyalty of his staff. The slaves were rewarded with emancipation, and not one refused his offer of employment. His trade in iron burgeoned. For a time, it seemed that the curse that was the Malazan Empire might well track him down once more, but there had been a gift, a gift of blood that he well understood now, and the city’s life had been spared.



For how long? Humble Measure was well acquainted with how the Empire got things done. Infiltration, clever acts of destabilization, assassinations, the formenting of panic and the dissolution of order. That they now had an embassy in the city was no more than a means of bringing their deadly agents into Darujhis-tan. Well, he was done running.



His father’s ancestors had traded in iron for twelve generations. Here in the office in the Gadrobi District of Darujhistan, in the vaults far below street level, he had found written records reaching back almost six hundred years. And among the most ancient of those vellum scrolls, Humble Measure had made a discovery.



Darujhistan would not fall to the Malazan Empire-he had found the means to ensure that. To ensure, indeed, that no foreign power could ever again threaten the city he now called home, ever again endanger his family, his loved ones.



To achieve this, Humble Measure well understood that he would need all his acumen in bringing complicated plans to fruition. He would need vast sums of coin, which he now had at his disposal. And, alas, he would need to be ruthless.



Unpleasant, yes, but a necessary sacrifice.



The central office of Eldra Iron Mongers was a sprawling collection of buildings, warehouses and work yards just north of Two-Ox Gate. The entire complex was walled and virtually self-contained. Three sets of forges fronted an elongated, single-storey foundry resting against the west wall. Beneath it ran a subterranean stream that provided outflow into the Maiten River, the effluent and wastes issuing from that stream giving the bay beyond its name of Brownrun, and most days the stain spread out far on to Lake Azure, an unfortunate consequence of working iron, as he said often to city officials when the complaints of the Gadrobi fishers grew too strident to ignore. Offers of recompense usually sufficed to silence such objections, and as for the faintly bitter irony Humble Measure felt when paying out these sums-an irony founded on the cold fact that iron was needed by all, the demand unending, from fishhooks to gaffs to armour and swords-well, he wisely kept that to himself.



The administration building rose against the south wall of the compound, both office and residence. Staff quarters dominated the wing nearest the south end of the foundry. The central block housed the records and clerical chambers. The final wing was the oldest part of the structure, its foundations dating back to an age when bronze was the primary metal, and civilization was still a raw promise. Far beneath the ground level of this wing, ancient stairs wound down through layers of limestone, opening out on to a succession of.rough-hewn vaults that had been used as storage rooms for generations. Long before such mundane usage, Humble Measure suspected, these crypts had held a darker purpose.



He had recently converted one such chamber into a secret office, wherein he could work alone, protected by a skein of long-dormant wards, and here he would remain for most of each night, strangely tireless, as if the very nobility of his cause blessed him with inhuman reserves-further proof to his mind that his efforts had begun to yield gifts, a recognition of sorts, from powers few even suspected still existed.



His thoughts were on such matters even during the day, and this day in particular, when his most loyal servant-the only man who knew of the secret crypts and, indeed, of Humble Measure’s master plan-entered his office and placed a small wax book on his desk, then departed.



A sudden quickening of anticipation, quickly crushed once he opened the book and read the message scribed into the wax.



Most unfortunate. Four assassins, all failing. The Guild assured him that such failure would not be repeated.



So, the targets had proved themselves to be truly as dangerous as Humble Measure had suspected, Sour consoltation,alas. He set the book down and reached for the roller on its heated plate. Carfully melted away the message.



The Guild would have to do better. Lest he lose faith and seek… other means.



In the yards beyond, bars of iron clanged as they were rolled from pallets on to the rail-beds leading to the warehouse, like the sudden clash of armies on a field of buttle. The sound made Humble Measure wince.