Toll the Hounds Part 128

Seeing this, Iskaral Pust gagged. 'G.o.ds! No wonder you can do what you do!'

She cackled. 'And oh how you beg for more!'

'Aagh! If I'd known, I'd have begged for something else!'

'Oh, what would you have begged for, sweetie?'

'A knife, so I could cut my own throat. Look at me. I'm covered in bites!'

'They got sharp teeth, all right, them bhokarala-'

'Not them, month-old cream puff. These are spider bites!'

'You deserve even worse! Did you drug her senseless? There's no other way she'd agree to-'

'Power! I have power! It's irresistible, everybody knows that! A man can look like a slug! His hair can stick out like a bhederin's tongue! He can be knee-high and perfectly proportioned he can stink, he can eat his own earwax, none of it matters! If he has power power!'

'Well, that's what's wrong with the world, then. It's why ugly people don't just die out.' And then she smiled. 'It's why you and me, we're made for each other! Let's have babies, hundreds of babies!'

Iskaral Pust ran to his mule, scrabbled aboard, and fled for his life.

The mule walked, seemingly unmindful of the rider thras.h.i.+ng and kicking about on its back, and at a leisurely saunter, Mogora kept pace.

The bhokarala, which had been cooing and grooming in a reconciliatory love fest, now flapped up into the air, circling over their G.o.d's head like gnats round the sweetest heap of dung ever beheld.

Approaching thunder startled Picker from her reverie within the strange cave, and she stared upon the carved rock wall, eyes widening to see the image of the carriage blurring as if in motion.

If the monstrosity was indeed pounding straight for her, moments from exploding into the cavern, then she would be trampled, for there was nowhere to go in the hope of evading those rearing horses and the pitching carriage behind them.

An absurd way for her soul to die- The apparition arrived in a storm of infernal wind, yet it emerged from the wall ghostly, almost transparent, and she felt the beasts and the conveyance tear through her a momentary glimpse of a manic driver, eyes wide and staring, both legs jutting out straight and splayed and apparently splinted. And still others, on the carriage roof and tossing about on the ends of straps from the sides, expressions stunned and jolted. All of this, sweeping through her, and past- And a rider lunged into view directly before her, sawing the reins and this man and his mount were real, solid. Sparks spat out from skidding hoofs, the horse's eyeless head lifting. Picker staggered back in alarm.

d.a.m.ned corpses! She stared up at the rider, and then swore. 'I know you!'

The one-eyed man, enwreathed in the stench of death, settled his horse and looked down upon her. And then he said, 'I am Hood's Herald now, Corporal Picker.'

'Oh. Is that a promotion?'

'No, a d.a.m.ned sentence, and you're not the only one I need to visit, so enough of the sardonic s.h.i.+t and listen to me-'

She bridled. 'Why? What am I doing here? What's Hood want with me that he ain't already got? Hey, take a message back to him! I want to-'

'I cannot, Picker. Hood is dead.'

'He's what what?'

'The Lord of Death no longer exists. Gone. For ever more. Listen, I ride to the G.o.ds of war. Do you understand, torc-bearer? I ride to all the G.o.ds of war.' I ride to all the G.o.ds of war.'

Torc-bearer? She sagged. 'Ah, s.h.i.+t.'

Toc the Younger spoke then, and told her all she needed to know.

When he was done, she stared, the blood drained from her face, and watched as he gathered the reins once more and prepared to leave.

'Wait!' she demanded. 'I need to get out of here! How do I do that, Toc?'

The dead eye fixed upon her one last time. He pointed at the gourds resting on the stone floor to either side of Picker. 'Drink. Live up to your name. Pick one, Picker.'

'Are you mad? You just told me where that blood's come from!'

'Drink, and remember all that I have told you.'

And then he was gone.

Remember, yes, she would do that. 'Find the Toblakai. Find the killer and remind him . . . remind him, do you understand me? Then, torc-bearer, lead him to war. 'Find the Toblakai. Find the killer and remind him . . . remind him, do you understand me? Then, torc-bearer, lead him to war.

'Lead him to war . . .'

There had been more, much more. None of it anything she could hope to forget. 'All I wanted to do was retire.'

Cursing under her breath, she walked over to the nearest gourd, crouched down before it. Drink. It's blood, dammit! Drink. It's blood, dammit!

Drink.

To stand in the heart of Dragnipur, to stand above the very Gate of Darkness, this was, for Anomander Rake, a most final act. Perhaps it was desperation. Or a sacrifice beyond all mortal measure.

A weapon named Vengeance, or a weapon named Grief either way, where he had been delivered by that sword was a world of his own making. And all the choices that might have been were as dust on the bleak trail of his life.

He was the Son of Darkness. His people were lost. There was, for him, room to grieve, here at the end of things, and he could finally turn away, as his mother had done so long ago. Turn away from his children. As every father must one day do, in that final moment that was death. The notion of forgiveness did not even occur to him, as he stood on the mound of moaning, tattooed bodies.

He was, after all, not the begging sort.

The one exception was Draconus. Ah, but those circ.u.mstances were unique, the crime so faceted, so intricately complicated, that it did no good to seek to prise loose any single detail. In any case, the forgiveness he asked for did not demand an answer. All that mattered was that Draconus be given those words. He could do with them as he pleased.

Anomander Rake stood, eyes fixed heavenward, facing that seething conflagration, the descending annihilation, and he did not blink, did not flinch. For he felt its answer deep within him, in the blood of Tiam, the blood of chaos.

He would stand, then, for all those he had chained here. He would stand for all the others as well. And for these poor, broken souls underfoot. He would stand, and face that ferocious chaos.

Until the very last moment. The very last moment.

Like a ma.s.s of serpents, the tattoos swarmed beneath him.

Kadaspala had waited for so long. For this one chance. Vengeance against the slayer of a beloved sister, the betrayer of Andarist, n.o.ble Andarist, husband and brother. Oh, he had come to suspect what Anomander Rake intended. Sufficient reparation? All but one Tiste Andii would answer 'yes' to that question. All but one.

Not Kadaspala! No, not me! Not me not me! Not me not me not me!

I will make you fail. In this, your last gesture, your pathetic attempt at reconciliation I will make you fail!

See this G.o.d I made? See it? See it see it!

No, you did not expect that expect that expect that, did you now? Did you now?

Nor the knife in its hand. Nor the knife in its hand!

Teeth bared, blind Kadaspala twisted on to his back, the better to see the Son of Darkness, yes, the better to see him. Eyes were not necessary and eyes were not necessary. To see the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

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 G.o.d a G.o.d a G.o.d he has made a G.o.d and the knife the knife the knife- to all of these things. For Kadaspala has made a G.o.d a G.o.d a G.o.d he has made a G.o.d 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 n.o.ble so n.o.ble yes and clever and so very clever and who else but Anomander Rake so n.o.ble and so clever?

All to fail!

Child G.o.d! 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 I 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 Andii 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 d.a.m.ned 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 reminding 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 pa.s.sed each one up to Spindle, who stumbled away with them, slos.h.i.+ng 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, rea.s.suring.

And G.o.ds, 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 f.u.c.king 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.'

Spindle stared at him. 'That's a different row of knots you're showing me here, Monkrat. Last night, you was talking it up 'bout how we'd run him down and do him good-'

'I changed my mind, Spin. These poor runts did that.' He hesitated. 'You did that, making me do what we just done.' He then laughed harshly. 'Fancy this, I'm feeling . . . redeemed. Now ain't that ironic, Spin.'

Spindle slowly settled back against the trench wall, and then sank down until he was sitting in the mud. 's.h.i.+t. How about that. And I walked all this way, looking for just what you done and found here. I was needing something, I thought they was answers . . . but I didn't even know the right questions.' He grimaced and spat. 'I still don't.'

Monkrat shrugged. 'Me neither.'

'But you been redeemed.' And that statement was almost bitter-sounding.

Monkrat struggled with his thoughts. 'When that hits you me, when it hit me, well, what it's feeling like right now, Spin, it's like redemption finds a new meaning. It's when you don't need answers no more, because you know that anybody promising answers is fulla c.r.a.p. Priest, priestess, G.o.d, G.o.ddess. Fulla c.r.a.p, you understanding me?'

'That don't sound right,' Spindle objected. 'To be redeemed, someone's got to do the redeeming.'

'But maybe it don't have to be someone else. Maybe it's just doing something, being something, someone, and feeling that change inside it's like you went and redeemed yourself. And n.o.body else's opinion matters. And you know that you still got all them questions, right ones, wrong ones, and maybe you'll be able to find an answer or two, maybe not. But it don't matter. The only thing that matters is you now know ain't n.o.body else has got a d.a.m.ned thing to do with it, with any of it. That's That's the redemption I'm talking about here.' the redemption I'm talking about here.'

Spindle leaned his head back and closed his eyes. 'Lucky you, Monkrat. No, I mean that. I do.'

'You idiot. I was rotting here, seeing everything and doing nothing. If I now ended up someplace else, it's all because of you. s.h.i.+t, you just done what a real priest should do no f.u.c.king advice, no bulls.h.i.+t wisdom, no sympathy, none of that c.r.a.p. Just a d.a.m.ned kick in the b.a.l.l.s and get on with doing what you know is right. Anyway, I won't forget what you done, Spin. I won't ever forget.'

Spindle opened his eyes, and Monkrat saw an odd frown on the man's face as he stared skyward.

And then he too looked up.

A lone figure walked towards the Temple of Darkness, moccasins whispering on the slick cobbles. One hand was held up, from which thin delicate chains whirled round and round, the rings at their ends flas.h.i.+ng. Thick rain droplets burst apart in that spinning arc, spraying against the face and the half-smile curving the lips.