Toll the Hounds
Standing so tall, so fierce, almost within reach.
Atop the mountain of bodies, the moaning bridge of flesh and bone, the sordid barrier at Dark’s door, this living ward-so stupid so stupid! Standing there, eyes lifting up, soul facing down and down and downward-will she sense him? Will she turn? Will she see? Will she understand?
No to all of these things. For Kadaspala has made a god a god a god he has made a god and the knife the knife the knife-
Anomander Rake stands, and the map awakens, its power and his power, awakening.
Wandering Hold, wander no longer. Fleeing Gate, flee no more. This is what he will do. This is the sacrifice he will make, oh so worthy so noble so noble yes and clever and so very clever and who else but Anomander Rake so noble and so clever?
All to fail!
Child god! It’s time! Feel the knife in your hand-feel it? Now lift it high-the fool sees nothing, suspects nothing, knows nothing of how 1 feel, how I do not forget will never forget will never forget and no, I will never forget!
Reach high.
Stab!
Stab!
Stab!
Storm of light, a scattered moon, a rising sun behind bruised clouds from which brown, foul rain poured down, Black Coral was a city under siege, and the Tiste Anclii within it could now at last feel the death of their Lord, and with him the death of their world.
Was it fair, to settle the burden of long-dead hope upon one person, to ask of that person so much? Was it not, in fact, cowardice? He had been their strength. He had been their courage. And he had paid the Hound’s Toll for them all, centuries upon centuries, and not once had he turned away.
As if to stand in his mother’s stead. As if to do what she would not.
Our Lord is dead. He has left us.
A people grieved.
The rain descended. Kelyk ran in bitter streams on the streets, down building walls. Filled the gutters in mad rush. Droplets struck and sizzled black upon the hide of Silanah. This was the rain of usurpation, and against it they felt helpless.
Drink deep, Black Coral.
And dance, yes, dance until you die.
Monkrat struggled his way up the muddy, root-tangled slope with the last two children in his arms. He glanced up to see Spindle crouched at the crest, smeared in clay, looking like a damned gargoyle. But there was no glee in the staring eyes, only exhaustion and dread.
The unnatural rain had reached out to this broken, half-shattered forest. The old trenches and berms were black with slime, the wreckage of retaining walls re-minding him of rotting bones and teeth, as if the hillside’s flesh had been torn away to reveal a giant, ravaged face, which now grinned vacuously at the grey and brown sky.
The two ex-Bridgeburners had managed to find an even twenty children, four of them so close to death they’d weighed virtually nothing, hanging limp in their arms. The two men had worked through the entire night ferrying them up to the entrenchments, down into the tunnels where they could be out of the worst of the rain. They had scrounged blankets, some food, clean water in clay jugs.
As Monkrat drew closer Spindle reached down to help him scrabble over the edge. The scrawny girls dangled like straw dolls, heads lolling, as Monkrat passed each one up to Spindle, who stumbled away with them, sloshing through the muddy rivulet of the trench.
Monkrat sagged, stared down at the ground to keep the rain from his eyes and mouth as he drew in deep breaths.
A lifetime of soldiering, aye, the kind that made miserable slogs like this one old news, as familiar as a pair of leaking leather boots. So what made this one feel so different?
He could hear someone crying in the tunnel, and then Spindle’s voice, soothing, reassuring.
And gods, how Monkrat wanted to weep.
Different, aye, so very different.
‘Soldiers,’ he muttered, ‘come in all sorts.’
He’d been one kind for a long time, and had grown so sick of it he’d just walked away. And now Spindle showed up, to take him and drag him inside out and make him into a different kind of soldier. And this one, why, it felt right. It felt proper. He’d no idea…
He looked over as Spindle stumbled into view. ‘Let’s leave it at this, Spin,’ he begged. ‘Please.’
‘I want to stick a knife in Gradithan’s face,’ Spindle growled. ‘I want to cut out his black tongue. I want to drag the bastard up here so every one of them tykes can see what I do to him-’
‘You do that and I’ll kill you myself,’ Monkrat vowed, baring his teeth. ‘They seen too much as it is, Spin.’
‘They get to see vengeance-’
‘It won’t feel like vengeance to them,’ Monkrat said, ‘it’ll just be more of the same fucking horror, the same cruel madness. You want vengeance, do it in private, Spindle. Do it down there. But don’t expect my help-I won’t have none of it.’