The Malazan Empire, page 814
But now…someone’s broken loose.
How?
Chains and chains and chains to bind—
A bony hand closed on his shoulder and dragged him back.
Snarling, Draconus half turned. ‘Let go, damn you! I will stand with them, Hood – I must, can’t you see that?’
The Lord of Death’s hand tightened, the nails biting, and Hood slowly pulled him closer. ‘The fray,’ the god said in a rasp, ‘is not for you.’
‘You are not my master—’
‘Stand with me, Draconus. It’s not yet time.’
‘For what?’ He struggled to tear free, but a Jaghut’s strength could be immense, and barring the bloody removal of his entire shoulder, Draconus could do nothing. He and the Lord of Death stood alone, not twenty paces from the motionless wagon.
‘Consider this,’ said Hood, ‘a request for forgiveness.’
Draconus stared. ‘What? Who asks my forgiveness?’
Hood, Lord of the Dead, should have been the last to fall to Dragnipur. Whatever the Son of Darkness intended, its final play was found in the slaying of this ancient god. Such was the conviction of Draconus. A mad, pointless gamble, the empty purchase of time already consumed, the wasting of countless souls, an entire realm of the dead.
As it turned out, Draconus was wrong.
There was one more. One more.
Arriving with the power of a mountain torn apart in a long, deafening, crushing detonation. Argent clouds were shredded, whipped away in dark winds. The legions pressing on all sides recoiled, and the thousand closing paces so viciously won were lost in an instant. Dragons screamed. Voices erupted as if dragged out from throats – the 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, following.
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 dying 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. Summoned, yes, by a weapon in need—
Riding 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, 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 upward 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, Toblakai! 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 enormous 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, gusting past—
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.
These three did not even see the dragon.
Samar Dev stared wide-eyed at the dragon as it heaved back into the sky with its three howling, snarling victims.
She was crouched over the motionless form of Traveller, Dassem Ultor, wielder of Vengeance, slayer of the Son of Darkness, who now lifted a sorrow-wracked visage, bleak, broken – and then reached out and grasped her, tugged her close.
‘Not my choice! Do not blame me, woman! Do you hear? Do not!’
Then his eyes widened and he dragged her down on to the cobbles, covered her with his own body.
As two behemoths collided not three paces distant.
A white Hound.
And a bear, a god, a beast forgotten in the passing of the world.
It had arrived a moment after the Hound, and its massive forearms wrapped round in a crushing embrace, lifting the Hound into the air – and clear of Samar Dev and Dassem – before both creatures slammed into and through the building’s front wall.
Rubble crashed down, tumbling chunks of masonry striking Dassem’s broad back as he pulled himself and Samar away from the collapsing façade. Somewhere within that building, bear and Hound fought in a frenzy.
Leaving, now, two Hounds of Light, unopposed, and they reached the corpse of Anomander Rake. Jaws closed about a thigh and his body was dragged upward. The second beast circled, as if contemplating its own bite – but the sword still lodged in the Tiste Andii’s skull was pitching about as the first animal sought to carry away its prize, and wise caution kept it back.
The Seguleh threw his lance from fifteen paces away. The weapon sank into the side of the circling Hound, knocking it down – to be up again in an instant, snarling and snapping at the jutting shaft.
Karsa, whose longer strides had sent him ahead of the Second, voiced a Teblor battle cry – an ancient one, heard only when the elders spun their tales of ancient heroes – and the Hound gripping Rake’s corpse flinched at the sound.
Releasing its hold on that torn, gashed leg, it lunged towards the attacking Toblakai.
Two javelins struck the animal from its left. Neither lodged, but it was enough to sting its attention, and the Hound’s head pitched round to confront the new attackers.
Two young Teblor women stood on the other side of the avenue, each calmly readying another javelin in her atlatl. Between them stood a large, mangy dog, tensed, fangs bared, its growl so low it might as well have been coming up from the earth below.
The Hound hesitated.
Karsa charged towards it, blade whistling through the air—
The beast broke and ran – and the Toblakai’s sword sliced off its stubby tail and nothing else.
The Hound howled.
Shifting round, Karsa advanced on the other animal – it had dragged the lance loose and now it too was fleeing, leaving a trail of blood.
The Seguleh reclaimed his gore-smeared weapon.
Karsa hesitated, and then he moved to stand over the body of Anomander Rake. ‘They are beaten,’ he said.
The masked face swung round. Dead eyes in rimmed slits regarded him. ‘It has been a long time since I last heard that war cry, Toblakai. Pray,’ the warrior added, ‘I never hear it again!’
Karsa’s attention, however, was drawn to the Teblor women, and the dog that now advanced, its own stubbed tail wagging.
Staring at the animal, watching its limping approach, Karsa Orlong struggled against a sob. He had sent this dog home. Half dead, fevered and weak from blood loss, it had set out – so long ago now, so long ago. He looked up at the Teblor girls, neither of whom spoke. It was difficult to see through the tears – did he know these two? No, they looked too young.
They looked…
Down the side street, the five Hounds of Shadow had been driven back, unable to hold their ground against the combined sorceries of Spite and Envy. The magic slashed their hides. Blood sprayed from their snouts. And on all sides, forces sought to crush them down, destroy them utterly.
Writhing, battered, they fell back, step by step.
And the Daughters of Draconus drew ever closer to their prize.
Their father’s sword.
A birthright long denied them. Of course, both Envy and Spite understood the value of patience. Patience, yes, in the fruition of their desires, their needs.
The Hounds could not match them, not in power, nor in savage will.
The long wait was almost over.
The sisters barely registered the quiet arrival of a carriage well behind the Hounds. Alas, the same could not be said for the one who stepped out from it and swung strangely bestial eyes towards them.
That steady, deadly regard reached through indeed.
They halted their advance. Sorceries died away. The Hounds, shedding blood that steamed in the dawn’s light, limped back in the direction of the fallen wielder of Dragnipur.
Envy and Spite hesitated. Desires were stuffed screaming back into their tiny lockboxes. Plans hastily, bitterly readjusted. Patience…ah, patience, yes, awakened once more.
Oh well, maybe next time.
The vicious battle within the shell of the mostly demolished building had ended. Heart fluttering with fear, Samar Dev cautiously approached. She worked her way over the rubble and splintered crossbeams, edged past an inner wall that had remained mostly intact, and looked then upon the two motionless leviathans.
A faint cry rose from her. Awkwardly, she made her way closer, and a moment later found herself half sitting, half slumped against a fragmented slab of plastered wall, staring down at the dying bear’s torn and shredded head.
The Hound was gasping as well, its back end buried beneath the giant bear, red foam bubbling from its nostrils, each breath shallower and wetter than the one before, until finally, with a single, barely audible sigh, it died.
Samar Dev’s attention returned to the god that had so haunted her, ever looming, ever testing the air…seeking…what? ‘What?’ she asked it now in a hoarse whisper. ‘What did you want?’
The beast’s one remaining eye seemed to shift slightly inside its ring of red. In it, she saw only pain. And loss.
The witch drew out her knife. Was this the thing to do? Should she not simply let it go? Let it leave this unjust, heartless existence? The last of its kind. Forgotten by all…
Well, I will not forget you, my friend.
She reached down with the knife, and slipped the blade into the pool of blood beneath the bear’s head. And she whispered words of binding, repeating them over and over again, until at last the light of life departed the god’s eye.
Clutching two Hounds with a third one writhing in his mouth, Tulas Shorn could do little more than shake the beasts half senseless as the dragon climbed ever higher above the mountains north of Lake Azure. Of course, he could do one more thing. He could drop them from a great height.
Which he did. With immense satisfaction.
‘Wait! Wait! Stop it! Stop!’
Iskaral Pust climbed free of the ruckus – the mound of thrashing, snarling, spitting and grunting bhokarala, the mass of tangled, torn hair and filthy robes and prickly toes that was his wife, and he glared round.
‘You idiots! He isn’t even here any more! Gah, it’s too late! Gah! That odious, slimy, putrid lump of red-vested dung! No, get that away from me, ape.’ He leapt to his feet. His mule stood alone. ‘What good are you?’ he accused the beast, raising a fist.
Mogora climbed upright, adjusting her clothes. She then stuck out her tongue, which seemed to be made entirely of spiders.
Seeing this, Iskaral Pust gagged. ‘Gods! 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!’
‘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!’
