Toll the Hounds

She snarled. Yes, and then what? Run like a hare, leave the wagon far behind, flee the legions of chaos?

And when the Gate itself is destroyed, where will I run then? Will this world even exist?

She realized then that such questions did not matter. To be free, even if only for a moment, would be enough.

Apsal’ara, the Mistress of Thieves. How good was she? Why, she slipped the chains of Dragnipur!

She continued piling up links of the chains, her breaths coming in agonized, lung-numbing gasps.

Draconus stumbled away from Pearl’s side. He could not bear the emotions the demon stirred to life within him. He could not understand such a power to forgive, never mind the sheer madness of finding something worthwhile in this cursed realm. And to see Pearl standing there, almost crushed beneath the twitching, dripping bodies of fallen comrades, no, that too was too much.

Kadaspala had failed. The pattern was flawed; it had no power to resist what was about to assail them. It had been a desperate gambit, the only kind Draconus had left, and he could not even rail at the blind, legless Tiste Andii. None of us were up to this.

The moment Rake ceased killing things, we were doomed.

And yet, he found he had no rage left in him when he thought of Anomander Rake. In fact, he had begun to understand, even sympathize, with that exhausted desire to end things. To end everything. The delusion was calling it a game in the first place. That very founding principle had assured ultimate failure. Bored gods and children with appalling power, these were the worst sorts of arbiters in this scheme of existence. They fought change even as they forced it upon others; they sought to hold all they churned even as they struggled to steal all they could from rivals. They proclaimed love only to kill it in betrayal and spite.

Yes, Draconus understood Rake. Any game that played with grief was a foul thing, an abomination. Destroy it. Bring it all down, Rake. Rake, my heir, my son in spirit, my unknown and unknowable inheritor. Do as you must.

I stand aside.

Oh, bold words.

When the truth is, I have no choice.

The force that suddenly descended upon the realm of Dragnipur was of such magnitude that, for an instant, Draconus believed the chaos had finally reached them, and he was driven to his knees, stunned, half blinded. The immense pressure bore down, excruciating, and Draconus ducked his head, covered it with his arms, and felt his spine bowing beneath a crushing presence.

If there was sound, he heard nothing. If there was life, he saw only darkness. If there was air, he could not draw it into his lungs. He felt his bones groaning-

The torture eased with the settling of a skeletal, long-fingered hand on his right shoulder.

Sounds rose once more, strangely muted. A renewed storm of wailing terror and dismay. In front of Draconus the world found its familiar details, although they seemed ghostly, ephemeral. He was able, at last, to breathe deep-and he tasted death.

Someone spoke above him. ‘He is indeed a man of his word.’

And Draconus twisted round, lifted his gaze-the hand on his shoulder rasping away with a rustle of links-and stared up at the one who had spoken. At Hood, the Lord and High King of the Dead.

‘No!’ Draconus bellowed, rising only to stagger back, almost tripping on his chains. ‘No! What has he done? By the Abyss, what has Rake done?’

Hood half raised his arms and seemed to be staring down at the manacles enclosing his gaunt wrists.

Disbelief collapsed into shock, and then raw horror. This made no sense. Draconus did not understand. He could not-gods-he could not believe-

He spun round, then, and stared at the legions of chaos-oh, they had been pushed back, a league or more, by the arrival of this singular creature, by the power of Hood. The actinic stormclouds had tumbled in retreat, building anew and seeming to thrash in frustration-yes, an interlude had been purchased. But-‘Wasted. All wasted! Why? This has achieved nothing! Hood-you were betrayed. Can you not see that? No-’ Draconus clutched at his head. ‘Rake, oh Rake, what did you want of this? How could think it would achieve anything?’

‘I have missed you, Draconus,’ Hood said.

And he twisted round once more, glaring at the god. Jaghut. Yes, the mad, unknowable Jaghut. ‘You damned fool! You asked for this, didn’t you? Have you lost your mind!?’

‘A bargain, old friend,’ Hood replied, still studying the chains on his wrists. ‘A… gamble.’

‘What will happen? When chaos claims you? When chaos devours the realm of death itself? You have betrayed the gods, all of them. You have betrayed all life, When you fall -’

‘Draconus,’ Hood cut in with a sigh, reaching up now to pull back the hood, re-vealing that withered Jaghut face, the clawed lines of eternal sorrow. ‘Draconus, my friend,’ he said softly, ‘surely you do not think I have come here alone?’

He stared at the god, for a moment uncomprehending. And then-he caught a distant roar of sound, edging in from three of the four horizons, and those indistinct skylines were now… seething.

As the armies of the dead marched at the behest of their Lord.

From one side, a score of riders was fast approaching.

‘Hood,’ Draconus said, numbed, baffled, ‘they are unchained.’

‘So they are.’

‘This is not their fight.’

‘Perhaps. That is, as yet, undecided.’

Draconus shook his head. ‘They cannot be here. They cannot fight the enemy-those dead, Hood, all they have left is their identities, each soul, barely holding on. You cannot do this to them! You cannot ask this of them!’

The god was now eyeing the wagon. ‘All I shall ask,’ he said, ‘of the fallen, Draconus, is that they choose. Of their own will. After this, I shall ask nothing of them. Ever again.’

‘So who will claim the dead?’

‘Let the gods see to their own.’

The coldness of that response staggered Draconus. ‘And what of those who worship no gods?’

‘Yes, what of them?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘After this,’ Hood said, still studying the wagon, ‘the dead will not be my con-cern. Ever again.’

The approaching riders rode rotted, skeletal mounts. Ragged capes flailed out behind the warriors. From the advancing armies, countless standards wavered and pitched about amidst up-thrust spearheads. The numbers were indeed unimagin-able. Broken fragments of war songs arrived like tatters of wind. The realm groaned-Draconus could not comprehend the weight that must now be crushing down the weapon’s wielder. Could Draconus have withstood it? He did not know. But then, perhaps even at this moment Anomander Rake himself was dying, bones snapping, blood spurting…

But there was more. Here, before his eyes.

All the creatures chained to the wagon had ceased pulling the enormous edifice-for the first time in millennia, the wagon had stopped rolling. And those creatures stood or knelt, staring outward, silent, perhaps disbelieving, as legions of the dead closed in. A flood, an ocean of iron and bone-

The riders arrived. Strangers all to Draconus. Six trotted their withered mounts closer. One of them was masked, and he had seen those masks before-a host slain in succession by Anomander Rake. Seguleh. The marks upon this one told Draconus that he was looking upon the Second. Had he challenged the First? Or had someone challenged him?

The Second was the first to speak. ‘This is the sorry shit-hole you want us to fight for, Hood? Flinging ourselves into the maw of chaos.’ The masked face seemed to scan the huddled, bedraggled creatures in their chains. ‘What are these, that we must now die again for? That we must cease for? Miserable wretches, one and all! Useless fools, bah! Hood, you ask too much.’

The Lord of Death did not even face the Seguleh as he replied, ‘Do you now change your mind, Knight?’