Toll the Hounds

When all is done, dare to weigh thine own harvest of feelings and consider this one challenge: if all was met with but a callous shrug, then, this round man invites, shift round such cruel, cold regard, and cast one last judgement. Upon thy-



self.



But for now… witness:



Skilles Naver was about to murder his family. He had been walking home from Gajjet’s Bar, belly filled with ale, only to have a dog the size of a horse step out in front of him. A blood-splashed muzzle, eyes burning with bestial fire, the huge flattened head swinging round in his direction.



He had frozen in place. He had pissed himself, and then shat himself.



A moment later a high wooden fence surrounding a vacant lot further up the street-where a whole family had died of some nasty fever a month earlier-sud-denly collapsed and a second enormous dog appeared, this one bone white.



Its arrival snatched the attention of the first beast, and in a surge of muscles the creature lunged straight for it.



They collided like two runaway, laden wagons, the impact a concussion that staggered Skilles. Whimpering, he turned and ran.



And ran.



And now he was home, stinking like a slop pail, and his wife was but half packed-caught in the midst of a treacherous flight, stealing the boys, too. His boys. His little workers, who did everything Skilles told them to (and Beru fend if they didn’t or even talked back, the little shits) and the thought of a life with-out them-without his perfect, private, very own slaves-lit Skilles into a white rage.



His wife saw what was coming. She pushed the boys into the corridor and then turned to give up her own life. Besk the neighbour the door next over was collecting the boys for some kind of escape to who knew where. Well, Skilles would just have to hunt him down, wouldn’t he? It wasn’t as if puny rat-faced Surna was going to hold him back for long, was it?



Just grab her, twist that scrawny neck and toss the waste of space to one side - He didn’t even see the knife, and all he felt of the murderous stab was a prick under his chin, as the thin blade shot up through his mouth, deflected inward by his upper palate, and sank three fingers deep straight into the base of his brain. Surna and her boys didn’t have to run after all.



Kanz was nine years old and he loved teasing his sister who had a real temper, as Ma always said as she picked up pieces of broken crockery and bits of hated veg-etables scattered all over the floor, and the best thing was prodding his sister in the ribs when she wasn’t looking, and she’d spin round, eyes flashing with fury and hate-and off he’d run, with her right on his heels, out into the corridor, pell-mell straight to the stairs and then down and round and down fast as he could go with her screeching behind him.



Down and round and down and -



– and he was flying through the air. He’d tripped, missed his grip on the rail, and the ground floor far below rushed up to meet him.



‘You two will be the death of each other!’ Ma always said. Zasperating! She said that too -



He struck the floor. Game over.



Sister’s quick temper went away and never returned after that night. And Ma never again voiced the word ‘zasperating’. Of course it did not occur to her that its sudden vanishing from her mind was because her little boy had taken it with him, the last word he’d thought. He’d taken it, as would a toddler a doll, or a blanket. For comfort in his dark new world.



Benuck Fill sat watching his mother wasting away. Some kind of cancer was eating her up inside. She’d stopped talking, stopped wanting anything; she was like a sack of sticks when he picked her up to carry her to the washtub to wipe down all the runny stuff she leaked out these days, these nights. Her smile, which had told him so much of her love for him, and her shame at what she had become-that horrible loss of dignity-had changed now into something else: an open mouth, lips withered and folded in, each breath a wheezing gasp. If that was a smile then she was smiling at death itself and that was hard for him to bear. Seeing that. Understanding it, what it meant.



Not long now. And Benuck didn’t know what he would do. She had given him life. She had fed him, held him, kept him warm. She had given him words to live by, rules to help him shape his life, his self. She wasn’t clever, very, or even wise. She was just an average person, who worked hard so that they could live, and worked even harder when Da went to light in Pale where he probably died though they never found out either way. He just never came back.



Benuck sat wringing his hands, listening to her breathing, wishing he could help her, fill her with his own breath, fill her right up so she could rest, so she’d have a single, final moment when she didn’t suffer, one last moment of painless life, and then she could let go…