Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen 8)

‘You’d never believe me.’

‘Is that shackle scars on your wrists?’

‘Aye, and worse. Nathii slave pens. Malazan slavers-all the way to Seven Cities. Beru fend, my friends, none of it was pretty. And as for the long journey back, why, if I was a bard I’d make a fortune spinning that tale!’

The sword hovering in front of his face had wavered, dipped, and now finally fell away, while the knife point jabbing his ribs eased back. Torvald looked quickly into both faces before him, and said, ‘One night, old friends, and all this will be cleared up. And I can start helping you with that list.’

‘We already got us help,’ Leff said, although he didn’t seem pleased by that admission.

‘Oh? Who?’

‘Kruppe. Remember him?’

‘That oily, fat fence always hanging out at the Phoenix Inn? Are you two mad?’

Scorch said, ‘It’s our new taproom, Torvald, ever since Bormen threw us out for-’

‘Don’t tell him stuff like that, Scorch!’

‘One night,’ Torvald said, nodding. ‘Agreed? Good, you won’t regret it.’

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‘You’d never believe me.’

‘Is that shackle scars on your wrists?’

‘Aye, and worse. Nathii slave pens. Malazan slavers-all the way to Seven Cities. Beru fend, my friends, none of it was pretty. And as for the long journey back, why, if I was a bard I’d make a fortune spinning that tale!’

The sword hovering in front of his face had wavered, dipped, and now finally fell away, while the knife point jabbing his ribs eased back. Torvald looked quickly into both faces before him, and said, ‘One night, old friends, and all this will be cleared up. And I can start helping you with that list.’

‘We already got us help,’ Leff said, although he didn’t seem pleased by that admission.

‘Oh? Who?’

‘Kruppe. Remember him?’

‘That oily, fat fence always hanging out at the Phoenix Inn? Are you two mad?’

Scorch said, ‘It’s our new taproom, Torvald, ever since Bormen threw us out for-’

‘Don’t tell him stuff like that, Scorch!’

‘One night,’ Torvald said, nodding. ‘Agreed? Good, you won’t regret it.’

Stepping back, Leff sheathed his short sword. ‘I already do. Listen, Torvald. You run and we’ll chase you, no matter where you go. You can jump straight back into the Nathii slave pens and we’ll be there right beside you. You understanding me?’

Torvald frowned at the man for a moment, then nodded. ‘That I do, Leff. But I’m back, now, and I’m not going anywhere, not ever again.’

‘One night.’

‘Aye. Now, you two better head back to watching the quay-who knows who might be readying to flee on the next outbound ship.’

Both men suddenly looked nervous. Leff gave Torvald a push as he worked past, Scorch on his heels. Torvald watched them scurry to the alley mouth, then plunge into the crowd on Front Street.

‘How is it,’ he asked under his breath, of no one, ‘that complete idiots just live on, and on? And on?’

He adjusted his Moranth raincape, making certain that none of the items secreted in the underside pockets had been jostled loose or, gods forbid, broken. ‘ Nothing dripping. No burning sensations, no slithering presence of… whatever. Good. Tugging down his floppy hat, he set off once more.

This thing with Gareb was damned irritating. Well, he’d just have to do something about it, wouldn’t he? One night. Fine. So be it. The rest can wait.

I hope.

Born in the city of One Eye Cat twenty-seven years ago, Humble Measure was of mixed blood. A Rhivi woman, sold to a local merchant in exchange for a dozen bars of quenched iron, gave birth to a bastard son a year later. Adopted into his father’s household eight years on, the boy was apprenticed in the profession of iron¬mongery and would have inherited the enterprise if not for one terrible night when his sheltered, stable world ended.

A foreign army had arrived, investing the city in a siege. Days and nights of high excitement from the young man, then, with the streets aflame with rumours of the glory promised by the city’s membership in the great, rich Malazan Empire-if only the fools in the palace would capitulate. His father’s eyes had glowed with that Imagined promise, and no doubt it was on the rising tide of such visions that the elderly trader conspired with agents of the Empire to open the city gates one night-an attempt that ended in Catastrophic failure, with the merchant suffering arrest and then execution, and his estate invaded by city garrison soldiers with swords drawn.

That assault had left nightmare memories that would never leave Humble Measure. Witnessing his mother’s rape and murder, and that of his half-sisters. Screams, smoke and blood, everywhere blood, like the bitter gift of some dark god-oh, he would remember that blood. Beaten and in chains, he had been dragged into the st reet and would have suffered the same fate as the others if not for the presence of a mercenary company allied with the city. Its commander, a tall, fierce warrior named lorrick Sharplance, had taken command of the handful of surviving prisoners.

That company was subsequently driven from One Eye Cat by the city’s paranoid rulers, sailing out on ships across Old King Lake, shortly before yet another act of treachery proved more successful than the first attempt. Another night of slaughter, this time at the bloodied hands of Claw assassins, and One Eye Cat fell to the Malazan Empire.

Jorrick Sharplance had taken his prisoners with him, setting them free on the wild south shore of the lake, at the very feet of One Eye Range, with sufficient supplies to take them through the mountain passes on to the Old King Plateau. From there, Humble Measure had led his household’s survivors, slaves and free citizens alike, down the trader tracks to the city of Bear. A brief stay there, then southward to Patch and on to the Rhivi Trail.