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

Higher they climbed, and shadows raced in crazed patterns now in the churn-ing glare of the storm, as if the natural gloom of the world clung close to its sur-face, and here, high above it, the air was clearer, sharper.

The rocking crawl of the wagon below was felt now in the swaying of the wall near the top, a motion groaned out in the slick shifting of flesh and in a wavering song of dull, rhythmic moans and grunts. The wall finally sloped inward, and Ditch was tugged over hummocks of skin, the bodies so tight-packed that the surface be-neath him seemed solid, an undulating landscape, sheathed in sweat and flecks of ash and grime. Most of those lying here had settled on their stomachs, as if to stare at the sky-that would vanish for ever as soon as the next body arrived-was too much to bear.

Draconus rolled him into a depression between two backs, one facing one way, the other in the opposite direction. A man, a woman-the sudden contact with the woman’s soft flesh as he was wedged against her startled an awakening in Ditch and he cursed.

‘Take what you can, mage,’ said Draconus.

Ditch heard him leaving.

He could make out distinct voices now, odd nearby sounds. Someone was scrabbling closer and Ditch felt a faint tug on his chain.

‘Almost off, then. Almost off.’

Ditch twisted round to see who had spoken.

A Tiste Andii. He was clearly blind, and both sockets bore the terrible scarring of burns-only deliberate torture could be that precise. His legs were gone, stumps visible just below his hips. He was dragging himself up alongside Ditch, and the mage saw that the creature held in one hand a long sharpened bone with a blackened point.

‘Plan on killing me?’ Ditch asked.

The Tiste Anclii paused, lifted his head. Straggly black hair framed a narrow, hollowed-out face. ‘What sort of eyes do you have, friend?’

‘Working ones.’

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Higher they climbed, and shadows raced in crazed patterns now in the churn-ing glare of the storm, as if the natural gloom of the world clung close to its sur-face, and here, high above it, the air was clearer, sharper.

The rocking crawl of the wagon below was felt now in the swaying of the wall near the top, a motion groaned out in the slick shifting of flesh and in a wavering song of dull, rhythmic moans and grunts. The wall finally sloped inward, and Ditch was tugged over hummocks of skin, the bodies so tight-packed that the surface be-neath him seemed solid, an undulating landscape, sheathed in sweat and flecks of ash and grime. Most of those lying here had settled on their stomachs, as if to stare at the sky-that would vanish for ever as soon as the next body arrived-was too much to bear.

Draconus rolled him into a depression between two backs, one facing one way, the other in the opposite direction. A man, a woman-the sudden contact with the woman’s soft flesh as he was wedged against her startled an awakening in Ditch and he cursed.

‘Take what you can, mage,’ said Draconus.

Ditch heard him leaving.

He could make out distinct voices now, odd nearby sounds. Someone was scrabbling closer and Ditch felt a faint tug on his chain.

‘Almost off, then. Almost off.’

Ditch twisted round to see who had spoken.

A Tiste Andii. He was clearly blind, and both sockets bore the terrible scarring of burns-only deliberate torture could be that precise. His legs were gone, stumps visible just below his hips. He was dragging himself up alongside Ditch, and the mage saw that the creature held in one hand a long sharpened bone with a blackened point.

‘Plan on killing me?’ Ditch asked.

The Tiste Anclii paused, lifted his head. Straggly black hair framed a narrow, hollowed-out face. ‘What sort of eyes do you have, friend?’

‘Working ones.’

A momentary smile, and then he squirmed closer.

Ditch managed to shift round so that his ruined shoulder and arm were be-neath him, freeing his undamaged arm. ‘It’s crazy, but I still intend to defend my-self. Though death-if it even exists here-would be a mercy.’

‘It doesn’t,’ replied the Tiste Andii. ‘I could stab you for the next thousand years and do nothing more than leave you full of holes. Full of holes.’ He paused and the smile flickered once more. ‘Yet I must stab you anyway, since you’ve made a mess of things. A mess, a mess, a mess.’

‘I have? Explain.’

‘There’s no point, unless you have eyes.’

‘I have them, you damned fool!’

But can they see?’

He caught the emphasis on the last word. Could he awaken magic here? Could he scrape something from his warren-enough to attenuate his vision? There was nothing to do but try. ‘Wait a moment,’ he said. Oh, the warren was there, yes, as impervious as a wall-yet he sensed something he had not expected. Cracks, fis-sures, things bleeding in, bleeding out.

The effects of chaos, he realized. Gods, it’s all breaking down! Would there he a time, he wondered-an instant, in the very moment that the storm finally struck them-when he would find his warren within reach? Could he escape be-fore he was obliterated along with everyone and everything else?

‘How long, how long, how long?’ asked the Tiste Andii.

Ditch found he could indeed scrape a residue of power. A few words muttered under his breath, and all at once he saw what had been hidden before-he saw, yes, the flesh he was lying on.

A mass of tattoos blanketed every exposed patch of skin, lines and images cross-ing from one body to the next, yet nowhere could he see solid areas-all was made up of intricate, delicate traceries, patterns within patterns. He saw borders that dipped and twisted. He saw elongated figures with stretched faces and misshapen torsos. Not a single body atop this massive wagon had been exempted-barring Ditch’s own.

The Tiste Andii must have heard his gasp, for he laughed. ‘Imagine yourself hovering… oh, say fifteen man-heights overhead. Fifteen man-heights. Over-head, overhead. Hovering in the air, just beneath the ceiling of nothingness, the ceiling of nothingness. Looking down upon all this, all this, all this. Aye, it looks awry to you from where you crouch, but from up there, from up there, from up there-you will see no mounds of flesh, no knobs of skin-stretched bones-you’ll see no shadows at all-only the scene. The scene, yes, laid flat you’d swear. You’d swear it to every god and goddess you can think of. Flat! Laid flat, laid flat!’

Ditch struggled to comprehend what he was seeing-he did not dare attempt what the Tiste Andii had suggested, fearing the effort would drive him mad; no, he would not try to imagine himself plucked free of his flesh, his soul floating somewhere overhead. It was difficult enough to comprehend the obsession of this creation-a creation by a blind man. ‘You’ve been up here for a long time,’ Ditch finally said. ‘Avoiding getting buried.’