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

‘A bargain, old friend,’ Hood replied, still studying the chains on his wrists. ‘A… gamble.’

‘What will happen? When chaos claims you? When chaos devours the realm of death itself? You have betrayed the gods, all of them. You have betrayed all life, When you fall -’

‘Draconus,’ Hood cut in with a sigh, reaching up now to pull back the hood, re-vealing that withered Jaghut face, the clawed lines of eternal sorrow. ‘Draconus, my friend,’ he said softly, ‘surely you do not think I have come here alone?’

He stared at the god, for a moment uncomprehending. And then-he caught a distant roar of sound, edging in from three of the four horizons, and those indistinct skylines were now… seething.

As the armies of the dead marched at the behest of their Lord.

From one side, a score of riders was fast approaching.

‘Hood,’ Draconus said, numbed, baffled, ‘they are unchained.’

‘So they are.’

‘This is not their fight.’

‘Perhaps. That is, as yet, undecided.’

Draconus shook his head. ‘They cannot be here. They cannot fight the enemy-those dead, Hood, all they have left is their identities, each soul, barely holding on. You cannot do this to them! You cannot ask this of them!’

The god was now eyeing the wagon. ‘All I shall ask,’ he said, ‘of the fallen, Draconus, is that they choose. Of their own will. After this, I shall ask nothing of them. Ever again.’

‘So who will claim the dead?’

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‘A bargain, old friend,’ Hood replied, still studying the chains on his wrists. ‘A… gamble.’

‘What will happen? When chaos claims you? When chaos devours the realm of death itself? You have betrayed the gods, all of them. You have betrayed all life, When you fall -’

‘Draconus,’ Hood cut in with a sigh, reaching up now to pull back the hood, re-vealing that withered Jaghut face, the clawed lines of eternal sorrow. ‘Draconus, my friend,’ he said softly, ‘surely you do not think I have come here alone?’

He stared at the god, for a moment uncomprehending. And then-he caught a distant roar of sound, edging in from three of the four horizons, and those indistinct skylines were now… seething.

As the armies of the dead marched at the behest of their Lord.

From one side, a score of riders was fast approaching.

‘Hood,’ Draconus said, numbed, baffled, ‘they are unchained.’

‘So they are.’

‘This is not their fight.’

‘Perhaps. That is, as yet, undecided.’

Draconus shook his head. ‘They cannot be here. They cannot fight the enemy-those dead, Hood, all they have left is their identities, each soul, barely holding on. You cannot do this to them! You cannot ask this of them!’

The god was now eyeing the wagon. ‘All I shall ask,’ he said, ‘of the fallen, Draconus, is that they choose. Of their own will. After this, I shall ask nothing of them. Ever again.’

‘So who will claim the dead?’

‘Let the gods see to their own.’

The coldness of that response staggered Draconus. ‘And what of those who worship no gods?’

‘Yes, what of them?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘After this,’ Hood said, still studying the wagon, ‘the dead will not be my con-cern. Ever again.’

The approaching riders rode rotted, skeletal mounts. Ragged capes flailed out behind the warriors. From the advancing armies, countless standards wavered and pitched about amidst up-thrust spearheads. The numbers were indeed unimagin-able. Broken fragments of war songs arrived like tatters of wind. The realm groaned-Draconus could not comprehend the weight that must now be crushing down the weapon’s wielder. Could Draconus have withstood it? He did not know. But then, perhaps even at this moment Anomander Rake himself was dying, bones snapping, blood spurting…

But there was more. Here, before his eyes.

All the creatures chained to the wagon had ceased pulling the enormous edifice-for the first time in millennia, the wagon had stopped rolling. And those creatures stood or knelt, staring outward, silent, perhaps disbelieving, as legions of the dead closed in. A flood, an ocean of iron and bone-

The riders arrived. Strangers all to Draconus. Six trotted their withered mounts closer. One of them was masked, and he had seen those masks before-a host slain in succession by Anomander Rake. Seguleh. The marks upon this one told Draconus that he was looking upon the Second. Had he challenged the First? Or had someone challenged him?

The Second was the first to speak. ‘This is the sorry shit-hole you want us to fight for, Hood? Flinging ourselves into the maw of chaos.’ The masked face seemed to scan the huddled, bedraggled creatures in their chains. ‘What are these, that we must now die again for? That we must cease for? Miserable wretches, one and all! Useless fools, bah! Hood, you ask too much.’

The Lord of Death did not even face the Seguleh as he replied, ‘Do you now change your mind, Knight?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I was just complaining.’ He drew out a pair of notched, rust-stained swords. ‘You know me better than that. Still, oh, how I wanted Skinner. To lose him this way-by the Tyrant, it galls.’

‘That is why,’ said Hood, ‘you will not lead the Dead into this war.’

‘What? I am the Knight of Death! The damned bony fist himself! I demand-’

‘Oh, do be quiet, Second,’ sighed the Lord of Death. ‘Other tasks await you-and you will not rue them, I am sure. Iskar Jarak, will you command in the Knight’s stead? At the head of the spear, driving into the very heart of the enemy?’

The one so addressed had the look of a veteran among veterans. Grey-bearded, scarred, wearing threadbare, faded colours over his plain chain hauberk. Grey and magenta, bordered in black. At Hood’s request he faced the Jaghut. ‘We will harden the point,’ he said. ‘With Malazans. At the very tip, my Bridgeburners. Dujek on my left flank, Bult on the right with the Seventh and his Wickans.’ He then twisted in the saddle to regard another soldier. ‘Brukhalian and his Grey Swords to the right of Bult.’