Toll the Hounds Part 64

'That was long enough.'

Seerdomin turned his head, saw the Redeemer standing close. Not a large man. Not in any way particularly impressive. Hard enough, to be sure, revealing his profession as a soldier, but otherwise unremarkable. 'What made you what you are?' he asked or tried to his mouth filled with blood that frothed and spattered with every word.

The Redeemer understood him none the less. 'I don't know. We may possess ambition, and with it a self-image both grandiose and posturing, but they are empty things in the end.' Then he smiled. 'I do not recall being such a man.'

'Why did she leave, Redeemer?'

The answer was long in coming. 'You had help, I believe.

And no, I do not know what will come of that. Can you wait? I may need you again.'

Seerdomin managed a laugh. 'Like this?'

'I cannot heal you. But I do not think you will . . . cease. Yours is a strong soul, Seerdomin. May I sit down beside you? It has been a long time since I last had someone to speak to.'

Well, here I bleed. But there is no pain. 'As long as I can,' he said, 'you will have someone to speak to.' 'As long as I can,' he said, 'you will have someone to speak to.'

The Redeemer looked away then, so that Seerdomin could not see his sudden tears.

'He didn't make it,' Monkrat said, straightening.

Gradithan glowered down at Seerdomin's corpse. 'We were so close, too. I don't understand what's happened, I don't understand at all.'

He turned slightly and studied the High Priestess where she knelt on the muddy floor of the tent. Her face was slack, black drool hanging from her mouth. 'She used it up. Too soon, too fast, I think. All that wasted blood . . .'

Monkrat cleared his throat. 'The visions-'

'Nothing now,' Gradithan snapped. 'Find some more kelyk.'

At that Salind's head lifted, a sudden thirst burning in her eyes. Seeing this, Gradithan laughed. 'Ah, see how she worships now. An end to all those doubts. One day, Monkrat, everyone everyone will be like her. Saved.' will be like her. Saved.'

Monkrat seemed to hesitate.

Gradithan turned back and spat on to Seerdomin's motionless, pallid visage. 'Even you, Monkrat,' he said. 'Even you.'

'Would you have me surrender my talents as a mage, Urdo?'

'Not yet. But yes, one day, you will do that. Without regrets.'

Monkrat set off to find another cask of kelyk.

Gradithan walked over to Salind. He crouched in front of her, leaned forward to lick the drool from her lips. 'We'll dance together,' he said. 'Are you eager for that?'

He saw the answer in her eyes.

High atop the tower, in the moment that Silanah stirred cold eyes fixed upon the pilgrim encampment beyond the veil of Night Anomander Rake had reached out to still her with the lightest of touches.

'Not this time, my love,' he said in a murmur. 'Soon. You will know.'

Slowly, the enormous dragon settled once more, eyes closing to the thinnest of slits.

The Son of Darkness let his hand remain, resting there on her cool, scaled neck. 'Do not fear,' he said, 'I will not restrain you next time.'

He sensed the departure of Spinnock Durav, on a small fast cutter into the Ortnal beyond Night.w.a.ter. Perhaps the journey would serve him well, a distance ever stretching between the warrior and what haunted him.

And he sensed, too, the approach of Endest Silann down along the banks of the river, his oldest friend, who had one more task ahead of him. A most difficult one.

But these were difficult times, he reflected.

Anomander Rake left Silanah then, beneath Darkness that never broke.

North and west of Bastion, Kallor walked an empty road.

He had found nothing worthwhile in Bastion. The pathetic remnant of one of Nightchill's lovers, a reminder of curses voiced long ago, a reminder of how time twisted everything, like a rope binding into ever tighter knots and kinks. Until what should have been straight was now a tangled, useless mess.

Ahead awaited a throne, a new throne, one that he deserved. He believed it was taking shape, becoming something truly corporeal. Raw power, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with unfulfilled promise.

But the emergence of the throne was not the only thing awaiting him, and he sensed well that much at least. A convergence, yes, yet another of those confounded cusps, when powers drew together, when unforeseen paths suddenly intersected. When all of existence could change in a single moment, in the solitary cut of a sword, in a word spoken or a word left unspoken.

What would come?

He needed to be there. In its midst. Such things were what kept him going, after all. Such things were what made life worth living.

I am the High King of Failures, am I not? Who else deserves the Broken Throne? Who else personifies the misery of the Crippled G.o.d? No, it will be mine, and as for all the rest, well, we'll see, won't we?

He walked on, alone once more. Satisfying, to be reminded as he had been when travelling in the company of those pathetic Tiste Andii that the world was crowded with idiots. Brainless, stumbling, clumsy with stupid certainties and convictions.

Perhaps, this time, he would dispense with empires. This time, yes, he would crush everything, until every wretched mortal scrabbled in the dirt, fighting over grubs and roots. Was that not the perfect realm for a broken throne?

Yes, and what better proof of my right to claim that throne? Kallor alone turns his back on civilization. Look on, Fallen One, and see me standing before you. Me and none other.

I vow to take it all down. Every brick. And the world can look on, awed, in wonder. The G.o.ds themselves will stare, dumbfounded, amazed, bereft and lost. Curse me to fall each and every time, will you? But I will make a place where no fall is possible. I will defeat that curse, finally defeat it.

Can you hear me, K'rul?

No matter. You will see what there is to see, soon enough.

These were, he decided, glorious times indeed.

BOOK THREE - TO DIE IN THE NOW.

Push it on to the next moment Don't think now, save it For later when thinking will show Its useless face When it's too late and worry is wasted In the rush for cover

Push it past into that pocket So that it relents its gnawing presence And nothing is worth doing In pointless grace When all the valid suppositions Smother your cries

Push it over into the deep hole You don't want to know In case it breaks and makes you feel Cruel reminders When all you could have done is now past No don't bother

Push it well into the corner It's no use, so spare me the grief You didn't like the cost so bright, so high The bloodiest cut When all you sought was sweet pleasure To the end of your days

Push it on until it pushes back Shout your shock, shout it You never imagined you never knew what Turning away would do Now wail out your dread in waves of disbelief It's done it's dead

Push your way to the front Clawing the eyes of screaming kin No legacy awaits your shining children It's killed, killed Gone the future all to feed some holy glory The world is over. Over.

Siban's Dying Confession Siban of Aren

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

We watched him approach from a league away Staggering beneath the weight of all he held In his arms We thought he wore a crown but when he came near The circlet was revealed as the skin of a serpent Biting its tail We laughed and shared the carafe when he fell Cheering as he climbed back upright In pleasing charm We slowed into silence when he arrived And saw for ourselves the burden he carried Kept from harm We held stern in the face of his relieved smile And he said this fresh young world he had found Was now ours We looked on as if we were grand G.o.ds Contemplating a host of undeserved gifts Drawing knives Bold with pride we cut free bloodied slices Shared out this bright dripping bounty And ate our fill We saw him weep then when nothing was left Backing away with eyes of pain and dismay Arms falling But wolves will make of any world a carca.s.s We simply replied with our natures revealed In all innocence We proclaimed with zeal our humble purity Though now he turned away and did not hear As the taste soured And the betrayal of poison crept into our limbs We watched him walk away now a league maybe more His lonely march His mourning departure from our kindness His happy annihilation of our mindless selves Snake-bit unto death The Last Days of Our Inheritance Fisher kel Tath

The vast springs of the carriage slammed down to absorb the thundering impact; then, as the enormous conveyance surged back up, Gruntle caught a momentary glimpse of one of the Bole brothers, his grip torn loose, wheeling through the grainy air. Arms scything, legs kicking, face wide with bemused surprise.

His tether snapped taut, and Gruntle saw that the idiot had tied it to one of his ankles. The man plunged down and out of sight.

The horses were screaming, manes whipping in their frantic heaves forward across stony, broken ground. Shadowy figures voiced muted cries as the beasts trampled them under hoof, and the carriage rocked sickeningly over bodies.

Someone was shrieking in his ear, and Gruntle twisted round on his perch on the carriage roof, to see the other Bole brother Jula tugging on the tether. A foot appeared moccasin gone, long k.n.o.bby toes splayed wide as if seeking a branch and then the shin and lumpy knee. A moment later Amby reached up, found a handhold, and pulled himself back on to the roof. Wearing the strangest grin Gruntle had ever seen.

In the half-light the Trygalle carriage raced onward, plunging through seething ma.s.ses of people. Even as they carved through like a ship cutting crazed seas, ragged, rotting arms reached up to the sides. Some caught hold only to have their arms torn from their sockets. Others were pulled off their feet, and these ones started climbing, seeking better purchase.

Upon which the primary function of the shareholders was made apparent. Sweetest Sufferance, the short, plump woman with the bright smile, was now snarling, wailing with a hatchet into an outreaching arm. Bones snapped like sticks and she shouted as she kicked into a leering desiccated face, hard enough to punch the head from the shoulders.

d.a.m.ned corpses they were riding through a sea of animated corpses, and it seemed that virtually every one of them wanted to book pa.s.sage.

A large brutish shape reared up beside Gruntle. Barghast, hairy as an ape, filed blackened teeth revealed in a delighted grin.

Releasing one hand from the bra.s.s rung, Gruntle tugged loose one of his cutla.s.ses, slashed the heavy blade into the corpse's face. It reeled away, the bottom half of the grin suddenly gone. Twisting further round, Gruntle kicked the Barghast in the chest. The apparition fell back. A moment later someone else appeared, narrow-shouldered, the top of its head an elongated pate with a nest of mousy hair perched on the crown, a wizened face beneath it.

Gruntle kicked again.

The carriage pitched wildly as the huge wheels rolled over something big. Gruntle felt himself swinging out over the roof edge and he shouted in pain as his hand was wrenched where it gripped a rung. Clawed fingers scrabbled against his thighs and he kicked in growing panic. His heel struck something that didn't yield and he used that purchase to launch himself back on to the roof.

On the opposite side, three dead men were now mauling Sweetest Sufferance, each one seemingly intent on some kind of rape. She twisted and writhed beneath them, chopping with her hatchets, biting at their withered hands and head-b.u.t.ting the ones that tried for a kiss. Reccanto Ilk then joined the fray, using a strange saw-toothed knife as he attacked various joints shoulders, knees, elbows and tossing the severed limbs over the side as he went.

Gruntle lifted himself on to his knees and glared out across the landscape. The ma.s.ses of dead, he realized, were all moving in one direction, whilst the carriage cut obliquely into their path and as the resistance before them built, figures converging like blood to a wound, forward momentum began inexorably to slow, the horses stamping high as they clambered over ever more undead.

Someone was shouting near the rear of the carriage, and Gruntle turned to see the woman named Faint leaning down over the side, yelling through the shuttered window.

Another heavy blow buffeted the carriage, and something demonic roared. Claws tore free a chunk of wood.

'Get us out of here!'

Gruntle could not agree more, as the demon suddenly loomed into view, reptilian arms reaching for him.

Snarling, he leapt to his feet, both weapons now in hand.

An elongated, fanged face lunged at him, hissing.

Gruntle roared back a deafening sound cutla.s.ses lashing out. Edges slammed into thick hide, sliced deep into lifeless flesh, down to the bones of the demon's long neck.

He saw something like surprise flicker in the creature's pitted eyes, and then the head and half of the neck fell away.

Two more savage chops sent its forearms spinning.

The body plunged back, and even as it did so smaller corpses were scrambling on to it, as if climbing a ladder.

He now heard a strange sound ahead, rhythmic, like the clashing of weapons against shield rims. But the sound was too loud for that, too overwhelming, unless Gruntle straightened and faced forward.

An army indeed. Dead soldiers, moving in ranks, in squares and wedges, marching along with all the rest and in numbers unimaginable. He stared, struggling to comprehend the vastness of the force. As far as he could see before them . . . G.o.ds below, all of the dead, on the march but where? To what war? G.o.ds below, all of the dead, on the march but where? To what war?

The scene suddenly blurred, dispersed in fragments. The carriage seemed to slump under him. Darkness swept in, a smell of the sea, the thrash of waves, sand sliding beneath the wheels. The carriage side nearest him lurched into the bole of a palm tree, sending down a rain of cusser-sized nuts that pounded along the roof before bounding away. The horses stumbled, slowing their wild plunge, and a moment later everything came to a sinking halt.

Looking up Gruntle saw stars in a gentle night sky.

Beneath him the carriage door creaked open, and someone clambered out to vomit on to the sands, coughing and spitting and cursing.