Toll the Hounds

‘Save your wrath for Skinner,’ Iskar Jarak calmly replied.

‘Skinner!’ roared the Seguleh, savagely wheeling his horse round. ‘Where is he, then? I’d forgotten! Hood, you bastard-you made me forget! Where is he?’ He faced the three riders. ‘Does Toc know? Brukhalian, you? Someone tell me where he’s hiding!’

‘Who knows?’ said Iskar Jarak. ‘But there is one thing for certain.’

‘What?’ demanded the Seguleh.

‘Skinner is not here on this hill.’

‘Bah!’ The Seguleh drove spurs into his horse’s senseless flanks. The animal surged forward anyway, plunging off the hilltop and raging downslope like an av-alanche.

Soft laughter from Brukhalian, and Gruntle saw that even Toc was grinning-though he still would not meet his eyes. That death must have been terrible indeed, as if the world had but one answer, one way of ending things, and whatever lessons could be gleaned from that did not ease the spirit. The notion left him feeling morose.

It was a common curse to feel unclean, but that curse would be unbearable if no cleansing awaited one, if not at the moment of dying, then afterwards. Look-ing upon these animated corpses, Gruntle saw nothing of redemption, nothing purged-guilt, shame, regrets and grief, they all swirled about these figures like a noxious cloud.

‘If getting killed lands me with you lot,’ he said, ‘I’d rather do without.’

The one named Iskar Jarak leaned wearily over the large Seven Cities saddle horn. ‘I sympathize, truly. Tell me, do you think we’ve all earned our rest?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘You have lost all your followers.’

‘I have.’ Gruntle saw that Toc Anaster was now watching him, fixed, sharp as a dagger point.

‘They are not here.’

He frowned at Iskar Jarak. ‘And they should be, I suppose?’

Brukhalian finally spoke, ‘It is just that. We are no longer so sure.’

‘Stay out of Hood’s realm,’ said Toc Anaster. ‘The gate is… closed.’

Master Quell started. ‘Closed? But that’s ridiculous! Does Hood now turn the dead away?’

Toc’s single eye held on Gruntle. ‘The borders are sealed to the living. There will be sentinels. Patrols. Intrusions will not be tolerated. Where we march you can’t go. Not now, perhaps never. Stay away, until the choice is taken from you. Stay away.’

And Gruntle saw then, finally, the anguish that gripped Toe Anaster, the bone-deep fear and dread. He saw how the man’s warning was in truth a cry to a friend, from one already lost, already doomed. Save yourself. Just do that, and it will all be worth it-all we must do, the war we must seek. Damn you, Gruntle, give all this meaning.

Quell must have sensed something of these fierce undercurrents, for he then bowed to the three riders. ‘I shall deliver your message. To all the pilots of the Trygalle Trade Guild.’

The ground seemed to shift uneasily beneath Gruntle’s boots.

‘And now you had better leave,’ said Brukhalian.

The hill groaned-and what Gruntle had imagined as some internal vertigo was now revealed as a real quaking of the earth.

Master Quell’s eyes were wide and he held his hands out to the sides to stay balanced.

At the far end of the range of hills, a massive eruption thundered, lifting earth and stones skyward. From the ruptured mound something rose, clawing free, sin-uous neck and gaping, snapping jaws, wings spreading wide-

The hill shivered beneath them.

The three riders had wheeled their horses and were now barrelling down the slope.

‘Quell!’

‘A moment, damn you!’

Another hill exploded.

Damned barrows all light! Holding dead dragons! ‘Hurry-’

‘Be quiet!’

The portal that split open was ragged, edges rippling as if caught in a storm.

The hill to their right burst its flanks. A massive wedge-shaped head scythed in their direction, gleaming bone and shreds of desiccated skin-

‘Quell!’

‘Go! I need to-’

The dragon heaved up from cascading earth, forelimbs tearing into the ground. The leviathan was coming for them.

No-it’s coming for the portal-Gruntle grasped Master Quell and dragged him towards the rent. The mage struggled, shrieking-but whatever he sought to say was lost in the deafening hiss from the dragon as it lurched forward. The head snapped closer, jaws wide-and Gruntle, with Quell in his arms, threw himself back, plunging into the portal-

They emerged at twice the height of a man above the sandy beach, plummet-ing downward to thump heavily in a tangle of limbs.

Shouts from the others-

As the undead dragon tore through the rent with a piercing cry of triumph, head, neck, forelimbs and shoulders, then one wing cracked out, spreading wide in an enormous torn sail shedding dirt. The second wing whipped into view-

Master Quell was screaming, weaving frantic words of power, panic driving his voice ever higher.

The monstrosity shivered out like an unholy birth, lunged skyward above the island. Stones rained down in clouds. As the tattered tip of its long tail slithered free, the rent snapped shut.

Lying half in the water, half on hard-packed sand, Gruntle stared up as the creature winged away, still shedding dust.

Shareholder Faint arrived, falling to her knees beside them. She was glaring at Master Quell who was slowly sitting up, a stunned look on his face.

‘You damned fool,’ she snarled, ‘why didn’t you throw a damned harness on that thing? We just lost our way off this damned island!’

Gruntle stared at her. Insane. They are all insane.

There was a tension in his stance that she had not seen before. He faced east, across the vast sweeping landscape of the Dwelling Plain. Samar Dev gave the tea another stir then hooked the pot off the coals and set it to one side. She shot Karsa Orlong a look, but the Toblakai was busy retying the leather strings of one of his moccasins, aided in some mysterious way by his tongue which had curled into view from the corner of his mouth- the gesture was so childlike she wondered if he wasn’t mocking her, aware as always that she was studying him.

Havok cantered into view from a nearby basin, his dawn hunt at an end, The other horses shifted nervously as the huge beast drew closer with head held high as if to show off the blood glistening on his muzzle.

‘We need to find water today,’ Samar Dev said, pouring out the tea.

‘So we will,’ Karsa replied, standing now to test the tightness of the moccasin. Then he reached beneath his trousers to make some adjustments.

‘Reminding yourself it’s there?’ she asked. ‘Here’s your tea. Don’t gulp.’

He took the cup from her. ‘I know it’s there,’ he said. ‘I was just reminding you.’

‘Hood’s breath,’ she said, and then stopped as Traveller seemed to flinch.

He turned to face them, his eyes clouded, far away. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Spitting something out.’

Samar Dev frowned. ‘Yes what?’

His gaze cleared, flitted briefly to her and then away again. ‘Something is hap-pening,’ he said, walking over to pick up the tin cup. He looked down into the brew for a moment, then sipped.

‘Something is always happening,’ Karsa said easily. ‘It’s why misery gets no rest. ‘The witch says we need water-we can follow yon valley, at least for a time, since it wends northerly.’

‘The river that made it has been dead ten thousand years, Toblakai. But yes, the direction suits us well