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

Sure enough, there she was, standing with her back to him, right there in front of that circle of flat stones she’d spent days and nights arranging and rearranging. As if she’d lost her mind, and the look in her eyes of late-well, they were in so much trouble now.

‘Thordy!’

She didn’t even turn round, simply said, ‘Come over here, husband.’

‘Thordy, there’s trouble. I messed up. We messed up-we got to think-we got to get out of here, out of the city-we got to run-’

‘We’re not running,’ she said.

He came up beside her. ‘Listen, you stupid woman-’

She casually raised an arm and slid something cold and biting across his throat. Gaz stared, reached up his battered, maimed hands, and felt hot blood streaming down from his neck. ‘Thordy?’ The word bubbled as it came out.

Gaz fell to his knees, and she stepped up behind him and with a gentle push sent him sprawling face down on to the circle of flat stones.

‘You were a good soldier,’ she said. ‘Collecting up so many lives.’

He was getting cold, icy cold. He tried to work his way back up, but there was no strength left in him, none at all.

‘And me,’ she went on, ‘I’ve been good too. The dreams-he made it all so sim-ple, so obvious. I’ve been a good mason, husband, getting it all ready… for you. For him.’

The ice filling Gaz seemed to suddenly reach in, as deep inside him as it was possible to go, and he felt something-something that was his, and his alone, something that called itself me- convulse and then shriek in terror and anguish as the cold devoured it, ate into it, and piece after piece of his life simply vanished, piece after piece after-

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Sure enough, there she was, standing with her back to him, right there in front of that circle of flat stones she’d spent days and nights arranging and rearranging. As if she’d lost her mind, and the look in her eyes of late-well, they were in so much trouble now.

‘Thordy!’

She didn’t even turn round, simply said, ‘Come over here, husband.’

‘Thordy, there’s trouble. I messed up. We messed up-we got to think-we got to get out of here, out of the city-we got to run-’

‘We’re not running,’ she said.

He came up beside her. ‘Listen, you stupid woman-’

She casually raised an arm and slid something cold and biting across his throat. Gaz stared, reached up his battered, maimed hands, and felt hot blood streaming down from his neck. ‘Thordy?’ The word bubbled as it came out.

Gaz fell to his knees, and she stepped up behind him and with a gentle push sent him sprawling face down on to the circle of flat stones.

‘You were a good soldier,’ she said. ‘Collecting up so many lives.’

He was getting cold, icy cold. He tried to work his way back up, but there was no strength left in him, none at all.

‘And me,’ she went on, ‘I’ve been good too. The dreams-he made it all so sim-ple, so obvious. I’ve been a good mason, husband, getting it all ready… for you. For him.’

The ice filling Gaz seemed to suddenly reach in, as deep inside him as it was possible to go, and he felt something-something that was his, and his alone, something that called itself me- convulse and then shriek in terror and anguish as the cold devoured it, ate into it, and piece after piece of his life simply vanished, piece after piece after-

Thordy dropped the knife and stepped back as Hood, the Lord of Death, High King of the House of the Slain, Embracer of the Fallen, began to physically manifest on the stone dais before her. Tall, swathed in rotting robes of muted green, brown, and black. The face was hidden but the eyes were dull slits faintly lit in the midst of blackness, as was the smeared gleam of yellow tusks.

Hood now stood on the blood-splashed stones, in a decrepit garden in the district of Gadrobi, in the city of Darujhistan. Not a ghostly projection, not hidden behind veils of shielding powers, not even a spiritual visitation.

No, this was Hood, the god.

Here, now.

And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo.

The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets, in the City of Blue Fire.

The guard came on to the decrepit street facing the ramshackle house that was home to the serial murderer, but he could barely make it out through the pulsing waves of darkness that seemed to be doling in on all sides, faster and faster, as i f he was witness to a savage, nightmarish compression of time, clay hurtling into night into day and on and on. As if he was somehow rushing into his own old age, right up to his final mortal moment. A roaring sound filled his head, excruciating pain radiating out from his chest, burning with fire in his arms, the side of his neck. His jaws were clenched so tight he was crushing his own teeth, and every breath was agony.

He made it halfway to the front door before falling to his knees, doubling up and sinking down on to his side, the lantern clunking as it struck the cobbles. And suddenly he had room for a thousand thoughts, all the time he could have wanted, now that he’d taken his last breath. So many things became clear, simple, acquiring a purity that lifted him clear of his body-

And he saw, as he hovered above his corpse, that a figure had emerged from the killer’s house. His altered vision revealed every detail of that ancient, unhuman visage within the hood, the deep-etched lines, the ravaged map of countless cen-turies. Tusks rising from the lower jaw, chipped and worn, the tips ragged and splintered. And the eyes- so cold, so… haunted- all at once the guard knew this apparition…

Hood. The Lord of Death had come for him.

He watched as the god lifted his gaze, fixing him with those terrible eyes.

And a voice spoke in his head, a heavy voice, like the grinding of massive stones, the sinking of mountains. ‘I have thought nothing of justice. For so long now. It is all one to me. Grief is tasteless, sorrow an empty sigh. Live an eternity in dust and ashes and then speak to me of justice.’

To this the guard had nothing to say. He had been arguing with death night after night. He had been fighting all the way from the Phoenix Inn. Every damned step. He was past that now.

‘So,’ continued Hood, ‘here I stand. And the air surrounding me, the air rushing into my lungs, it lives. I cannot prevent what comes with my every step here in the mortal world. I cannot be other than what I am.’