Toll the Hounds

The quarrel took him low on the right side, just above his hip, glancing off the innominate and slicing messily through his liver.



Seba Krafar sagged back down, into a slump with his back against the desk.



With streaming eyes he looked across at the woman.



Malazan, right. She’d been a soldier once. No, she’d been a Bridgeburner. He used to roll his eyes at that. A Bridgeburner? So what? Just some puffed up ooh-ah crap. Seba was an assassin. Blood kin to Talo Krafar and now there was a monster of a man -



Who’d been taken down by a quarrel. Killed like a boar in a thicket.



She walked over to stand before him. ‘That was silly, Seba. And now here you are, face broken and skewered. That’s your liver bleeding out there, I think. Frankly, I’m amazed you’re not already dead, but lucky for you that you aren’t.’ She crouched and held up a small vial. ‘If I pour this into that wound-once I pluck out the bolt, that is, and assuming you survive that-well, there’s a good chance you’ll live. So, should I do that, Seba? Should I save your sorry arse?’



He stared at her. Gods, he hurt everywhere.



‘The name,’ she said. ‘Give me the name and you’ve got a chance to survive this. But best hurry up with your decision. You’re running out of time.’ Was Hood hovering? In that buried place so far beneath the streets? Well, of course he was.



Seba gave her the name. He even warned her off-don’t mess with that one, he’s a damned viper. There’s something there, in his eyes, I swear -



Blend was true to her word,



So Hood went away,



The cascade of sudden deaths, inexplicable and outrageous accidents, miserable ends and terrible murders filled every abode, every corner and every hovel in a spreading tide, a most fatal flood creeping out through the hapless city on all sides. No age was spared, no weight of injustice tipped these scales. Death took them all: well born and destitute, the ill and the healthy, criminal and victim, the unloved and the cherished.



So many last breaths: coughed out, sighed, whimpered, bellowed in defiance, in disbelief, in numbed wonder. And if such breaths could coalesce, could form a thick, dry, pungent fugue of dismay, in the city on this night not a single globe of blue fire could be seen.



There were survivors. Many, many survivors-indeed, more survived than died-but alas, it was a close run thing, this measure, this fell harvest.



The god walked eastward, out from Gadrobi District and into Lakefront, and, from there, up into the Estates.



This night was not done. My, not done at all.



Unseen in the pitch black of this moonless, smoke-wreathed night, a massive shape sailed low over the Gadrobi Hills, westward and out on to the trader’s road. As it drew closer to the murky lights of Worrytown, the silent flier slowly dropped lower until its clawed talons almost brushed the gravel of the road.



Above it, smaller shapes beat heavy wings here and there, wheeling round, plummeting and then thudding themselves back up again. These too uttered no. calls in the darkness.



To one side of the track, crouched in high grasses, a coyote that had been about to cross the track suddenly froze.



Heady spices roiled over the animal in a warm, sultry gust, and where a moment earlier there had been black, shapeless clouds sliding through the air, now there was a figure-a man-thing, the kind the coyote warred with in its skull, fear and curiosity, opportunity and deadly betrayal-walking on the road.



But this man-thing, it was… different.



As it came opposite the coyote, its head turned and regarded the beast.



The coyote trotted out. Every muscle, every instinct, cried out for a submissive surrender, and yet as if from some vast power outside itself, the coyote held its head high, ears sharp forward as it drew up alongside the figure.



Who reached down to brush gloved fingers back along the dome of its head.



And off the beast bounded, running as fast as it legs could carry it, out into the night, the vast plain to the south.



Freed, blessed, beneficiary of such anguished love that it would live the rest of its years in a grassy sea of joy and delight.



Transformed. No special reason, no grim purpose. No, this was a whimsical touch, a mutual celebration of life. Understand it or stumble through. The coyote’s role is done, and off it pelts, heart bright as a blazing star.



Gifts to start the eyes.



Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, walked between the shanties of Worrytown. The gate was ahead, but no guards were visible. The huge doors were barred.



From beyond, from the city itself, fires roared here and there, thrusting bulging cloaks of spark-lit smoke up into the black night.



Five paces from the gates now, and something snapped and fell away. The doors swung open. And, unaccosted, unnoticed, Anomander Rake walked into Darujhistan.