Toll the Hounds

pressure, the pain, the stunning power-

Chaos flinched, and then, slowly, began to gather itself once more.

No single force could defeat this enemy. Destruction was its own law, and even as it devoured itself it would devour everything else. Chaos, riding the road of Darkness, ever to arrive unseen, from sources unexpected, from places where one never thought to look, much less guard against.

The sword and all within it was dying, now, at last; dying.

Hood’s hand had left his shoulder, and Draconus sagged down on to his knees.

One more.

And, yes, he knew who was now among them.

Should he laugh? Should he seek him out, mock him? Should he close hands about his throat so that they could lock one to the other until the descent of oblivion?

No, he would do none of this.

Who asks for my forgiveness?

Had he the strength, he would have cried out.

Anomander Rake, you need not ask. That begging, alas, must come from me.

This was Mother Dark I snared here. Your mother-

And so, what will you now do?

A heartbeat later, a faint gasp escaped Draconus, and he lifted his head, opened his eyes once more. ‘Rake?’ he whispered.

Draconus slowly rose. And turned. To face the wagon.

To witness.

The Second watched yet another Seguleh fall. He then dragged his horse round, to glare with dead eyes at a tall, ornate carriage, as its train of screaming horses lunged forward. Figures pitched to one side, holding on for dear life as a fissure tore open-into which those horses vanished.

Hood’s Herald-that one-eyed soldier-drove heels to his tattered mount, fol-lowing.

And the Lord of Death’s voice drifted through the Second. ‘It seems you are needed after all, as you suspected. Now go-and know this, old friend, you have served me well.

‘I am the god of death no longer.

‘When you have done this last thing, your service is at an end. And then, well, Skinner awaits

The Second tilted back his masked, helmed head and howled in glee. Sheathing his swords, he rode hard after the carriage.

He saw the Herald vanish.

And the fissure began to close.

The Second drove his long-dead Jaghut stallion into that dying portal-

And left the realm of Dragnipur. The other Seguleh were doomed anyway, and though in this last battle they had each redeemed something of their shame in dy-ing to a foreigner, that was no reason to fall at their sides.

The Second did not stay long in the wake of the others as they thundered through unknown warrens, no, not long at all. For he had been summoned. Sum-moned, yes, by a weapon in need-

Hiding a seething storm of fiery winds, plunging through, his horse’s sheaves of armour clattering, its hoofs ringing sharp on cobbles, the Second saw what he sought, and he swept his hand down-

‘I’ll take that,’ laughed a hollow, metallic voice. And the lance was torn from Cutter’s hand. In an array of flapping tatters of hide, frayed straps and mangled buckles, the undead Seguleh who had, long ago now, once given him the weapon, now readied the lance, even as the masked warrior charged straight towards the white Hounds.

‘Skinner!’ he roared. ‘I’m coming for you! But first, these guys… ‘

Karsa Orlong sidestepped at the sudden arrival of some armoured warrior riding a monstrous, dead horse. Seeing the newcomer ride to meet the Hounds, he snarled and set off after him.

The lance angled down on the left side and so the Toblakai went to the rider’s right, eyes fixing on a Hound that clearly intended an attack on the horseman’s unprotected side.

Two beasts and two warriors all met at once.

The rider’s lance drove into a Hound’s throat just beneath the jaw, surging up-ward through the base of the skull, severing the spinal cord on its way to obliterate the back of the animal’s brain. The serrated lance head erupted from the skull in an explosion of grey pulp, blood and bone shards.

Karsa swung down, two-handed, as the other Hound arrived alongside the rider and reared to close jaws on the stranger’s right thigh. Flint blade sliced down through the spine, chopping halfway through a neck thick as a horse’s, before jamming-the Hound’s forward momentum, now pitching downward, dragged the weapon and Karsa with it as the animal slammed the cobbles.

At that instant the rider’s Jaghut horse collided chest to chest with a third hound. Bones shattered. The impact sent the rider over his horse’s head, dragging his lance free as he went. He struck and rolled off the back of the Hound-which seemed stunned, as the undead horse stumbled back.

Pulled down on to his knees, Karsa ducked the snapping attack of another Hound-and then the beast was past, as were all the others. The Toblakai rose, took two quick strides and thrust his sword into the chest of the dazed third Hound. Howling in pain, it staggered away from Karsa’s blade, blood fountaining out in the path of the withdrawing sword. The stranger had recovered and he now sank the lance into the gut of the writhing animal, the lance head tearing messily through soft tissue, fluids spilling down.

Something flashed in the eye-holes of the twin-scarred mask. ‘Well done, To-blukiii! Now let’s chase down the others!’ The two warriors swung round.

Cutter stared as seven Hounds swept round Karsa and the Seguleh. Now he didn’t even hold a lance- dammit-and he unsheathed a pair of knives as one of the beasts made straight for him.

A hand grasped the back of his shirt and yanked him back. Yelling in alarm, Cutter stumbled into someone’s short, brawny arms. He caught a momentary glimpse of a weathered face, eyes bulging, red moustache twitching beneath a bulbous nose-

Do I know this man?

And the one who had thrown him clear now lumbered forward, lifting an enor-mous two-handed axe. Barathol-

‘Wrong place for us!’ growled the man holding Cutter, and they began backing up.

Barathol recognized this beast-the one Chaur had tangled with, the one that had broken his friend’s skull. He almost sang his joy as he launched himself into its path, axe sweeping in a savage diagonal arc, low to high, as the Hound arrived, snarling, monstrous-

The axe edge bit deep into the beast’s lower jaw-another single instant’s delay and he would have caught its neck. As it was, the blow hammered the Hound’s head to one side.

The beast’s chest struck Barathol.

As if he’d been standing in the path of a bronze-sheathed battering ram, he was flung back, cartwheeling through the air, and was unconscious before he landed, fifteen paces behind the body of Anomander Rake.

The Hound had skidded, stumbled, wagging its head-its right mandible was broken, a row of jagged molars jutting out almost horizontal, blood splashing down.

For this battle, the beast was finished.

In the moment that Karsa and the stranger whirled round, a shadow swept over them, and both flinched down in the midst of a sudden wind, reeking of rot, gustingpast-

Tips of its wings clattering along the facings of buildings to either side, a dragon sailed above the street, talons striking like vipers. Each one closing round a Hound in a crushing, puncturing embrace, lifting the screaming animals into the air. The dragon’s head snapped down, jaws engulfing another-

And then the dragon thundered its wings and lifted skyward once more, carrying away three Hounds.

The creature’s attack had lasted but a handful of heartbeats, in the moment that Cutter was dragged back into Antsy’s arms-the Falari half carrying him in his charge towards the door of the shopfront to the right-and Barathol, his gaze fixed solely upon the hated Hound attacking him, swung his axe.