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

‘Maybe not,’ Nimander conceded.

‘But there is another issue, and that is mercy.’

He shot his cousin a hard look. ‘We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin-’

‘Not them-of course not. I was thinking of the Dying God.’

Ah… well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. ‘Thank you, Skin.’

‘For what?’

‘We will sneak past them.’

‘Carrying Clip?’

‘Yes.’

‘That won’t be easy-it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God grants gilts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do.’

‘We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means some-thing.’

Desra pulled her hand from Clip’s brow. ‘I was wrong. He’s getting worse.’ And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. ‘How are they?’ A languid blink. ‘Coming back, unharmed.’

Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too… empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid-oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded-but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.

Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. ‘Did you find anything to eat in the tap-room? Or drink?’

The warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra’s questions he glanced back. ‘Plenty, as if they’d just leftor maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.’

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‘Maybe not,’ Nimander conceded.

‘But there is another issue, and that is mercy.’

He shot his cousin a hard look. ‘We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin-’

‘Not them-of course not. I was thinking of the Dying God.’

Ah… well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. ‘Thank you, Skin.’

‘For what?’

‘We will sneak past them.’

‘Carrying Clip?’

‘Yes.’

‘That won’t be easy-it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God grants gilts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do.’

‘We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means some-thing.’

Desra pulled her hand from Clip’s brow. ‘I was wrong. He’s getting worse.’ And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. ‘How are they?’ A languid blink. ‘Coming back, unharmed.’

Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too… empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid-oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded-but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.

Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. ‘Did you find anything to eat in the tap-room? Or drink?’

The warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra’s questions he glanced back. ‘Plenty, as if they’d just leftor maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.’

‘Someone must be growing proper food, then,’ said Kedeviss. ‘Or arranging its purchase from other towns and the like.’

‘They’ve gone to a lot of trouble for us,’ Nenanda observed. ‘And that makes me uneasy.’

‘Clip is dying, Aranatha,’ Desra said.

‘Yes.’

‘They’re back,’ Nenanda announced.

‘Nimander will know what to do,’ Desra pronounced.

‘Yes,’ said Aranatha.

She circled once, high above the city, and even her preternatural sight struggled against the eternal darkness below. Kurald Galain was a most alien warren, even in this diffused, weakened state. Passing directly over the slumbering mass of Silanah, Crone cackled out an ironic greeting. Of course there was no visible response from the crimson dragon, yet the Great Raven well knew that Silanah sensed her wheeling overhead. And no doubt permitted, in a flash of imagery, the vision of jaws snapping, bones and feathers crunching as delicious fluids spurted-Crone cackled again, louder this time, and was rewarded with a twitch of that long, serpentine tail.

She slid on to an updraught from the cliff’s edge, then angled down through it on a steep dive towards the low-walled balcony of the keep.

He stood alone, something she had come to expect of late. The Son of Darkness was dosing in, like an onyx flower as the bells of midnight rang on, chime by chime to the twelfth and last, and then there would be naught but echoes, until even these faded, leaving silence. She crooked her wings to slow her plummet, the keep still rushing up to meet her. A flurry of beating wings and she settled atop the stone wall, talons crunching into the granite.

‘And does the view ever change?’ Crone asked.

Anomander Rake looked down, regarded her for a time.

She opened her beak to laugh in silence for a few heartbeats. ‘The Tiste Andii are not a people prone to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future? Do you imagine that our flight from his rotting flesh was not one of rapturous glee? Pleasure at being born, delight at being alive? Oh, I have run Out of questions for you-it is indeed now a sad time.’

‘Does Baruk understand, Crone?’

‘He does. More or less. Perhaps. We’ll see.’

‘Something is happening to the south.’

She bobbed her head in agreement. ‘Something, oh yes, something all right. Are the priestesses in a wild orgy yet? The plunge that answers everything! Or, rather, postpones the need for answers for a time, a time of corresponding bliss, no doubt. But then… reality returns. Damn reality, damn it to the Abyss! Time for another plunge!’