Toll the Hounds

‘He’ll live,’ pronounced Meese from where she crouched over Rallick, who was lying on the floor behind the counteri. Once we stop the bleeding. He musta been lumped by three or four, by the looks.’ Straightening, she dropped the bloody dagger on the counter. A crowd was gathering, and heads now tilted in for a closer look at that foreign-made weapon.



‘Malazan!’ hissed someone.



Pulling himself from Sulty’s arms, Cutter pushed through. ‘Give me room! Don’t touch that knife! It’s mine.’



‘Yours?’ demanded Irilta. ‘What’s that supposed t’mean, Crokus?’



‘He came up on me from behind-all quiet-like a killer. I thought I was defending myself-it was all a mistake-you sure he’s going to be all right, Meese?’



‘You was that scrawny thief years back!’ said a man with a vaguely familiar face, his expression flitting between disbelief and accusation.



‘Crokus, Irilta said,’ added the man beside him.-‘Did something the night the Moon came down, I heard. Knocked over a pillar or something. You remember, Scorch, don’t you?’



‘I make a point of remembering only what I need to, Leff. Though sometimes other stuff sticks, too. Anyway, he was a pickpocket, one of Kruppe’s lads.’



‘Well he ain’t any more, is he?’ Scorch said in a half-snarl. ‘Now he’s a Guild assassin!’



‘No I’m not!’ shouted Cutter-all at once feeling like the ungainly youth he had been years ago. Furious at his own burning face he swung to Meese. ‘Where’s everybody else? I mean-’



Meese held up a hand-on which there was some of Rallick’s blood-and said, ‘He’s waiting, Crokus. At his usual table-go on. Hey,’ she shouted to the crowd, ‘give him a way through! Go back t’your tables!’



Just like that, Cutter reflected, he had made things a shambles. His grand return. Everything. Reaching out as he passed, he retrieved his knife-not meeting Meese’s eyes as he did so. Then, as bodies pulled back, he saw-



There, at his usual table, the small round man with greasy hair and beaming, cherubic smile. Filthy frilly cuffs, a faded and stained red waistcoat. A glistening pitcher on the puddled tabletop, two tankards.



fust a thief. A pickpocket. A raider of girls’ bedrooms. Wasn’t I the breathless oriel A wide-eyed fool. Oh, Kruppe, look at you. If anybody wasn’t going to change, it’s you.



Cutter found himself at the table, collapsing into the waiting chair, reaching for the tankard. ‘I gave up on my old name, Kruppe. It’s now Cutter. Better suited, don’t you think?’ Then why do I feel like weeping? ‘Especially after what I did to I



Rallick just now.’



Kruppe’s brows lifted. ‘Kruppe sympathizes, oh yes he does. Life stumbles on-although the exception is none other than Kruppe himself, for whom life dances. Extraordinary, how such truth rubs so many so wrongly; why, can one’s very existence prove sufficient for such inimical outrage? Seems it can, oh yes, most certainly. There are always those, clear friend, for whom a wink is an insult, a smile a taunt. For whom humour alone is cause for suspicion, as if laughter was sly contempt. Tell Kruppe, dear Cutter, do you believe that we are all equal?’



‘Equal? Well-’



‘A laudable notion, we can both agree, yes? Yet’-and he raised one rather unclean finger-’is it not true that, from one year to the next, we each ourselves are capable of changes so fundamental that our present selves can in no reasonable way be considered equal to our past selves? If the rule does not apply even within our own individual lives, how can one dare hope to believe that it pertains collectively?’



‘Kruppe, what has all this-’



‘Years past, Cutter who was once named Crokus, we would not have a discussion such as this, yes? Kruppe sees and sees very well. He sees sorrow and wisdom both. Pain and still open wounds. Love found and love lost. A certain desperation that still spins like a coin-which way will it fall? Question as yet unanswered, a future as yet undecided. So, old friend now returned, let us drink, thus yielding the next few moments to companionable silence.’ And with that Kruppe collected his tankard and lifted it high.



Sighing, Cutter did the same.



‘The spinning coin!’



And he blanched. ‘Gods below, Kruppe!’



‘Drink, friend! Drink deep the unknown and unknowable future!’



And so he did.



The wheel had stopped spinning, milky water dripping down its sides to gather in the gutter surrounding it. The bright lanterns had been turned well down, sinking the room into soft light, and she now walked towards her bed, drying her hands with a towel.