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

Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #8) Page 347

The carriage wheel had moved slightly. Gruntle had caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and, leaving Glanno babbling on to the Boles, who stood looking down with mouths hanging open, he set out for it.

He sheathed his cutlasses and heaved at the wheel. It resisted until, with a thick slurping sound, it lifted clear of the mud and Gruntle pushed it entirely upright.

Cartographer was a figure seemingly composed entirely of clay, still bound by the wrists and ankle to the spokes. The face worked for a time, pushing out lumps of mud from its mouth, and then the corpse said, ‘It’s the jam-smeared bread thing, isn’t it?’

‘Look at that,’Quell said.

Precious Thimble made a warding gesture and then spat thrice, up, down, straight ahead. ‘Blackdog Swamp,’ she said. ‘Mott Wood. This was why I left, dammit! That’s the problem with Jaghut, they show up everywhere.’

Behind them, Mappo grunted but otherwise offered no comment.

The tower was something between square and round, the corners either weath-ered down by centuries and centuries of wind or deliberately softened to ease that same buffeting, howling wind. The entranceway was a narrow gloomy recess be-neath a mossy lintel stone, the moss hanging in beards that dripped in a curtain of rainwater, each drop popping into eroded hollows on the slab of the landing.

‘So,’ said Quell with brittle confidence, ‘the village Provost went and moved into a Jaghut tower. That was brave-’

‘Stupid.’

‘Stupidly brave, yes.’

‘Unless,’ she said, sniffing the air. ‘That’s the other problem with Jaghut. When they build towers, they live in them. For ever.’

Quell groaned. ‘I was pretending not to think that, Witch.’

‘As if that would help.’

‘It helped me!’

‘There’s two things we can do,’ Precious Thimble announced. ‘We can turn right round and ignore the curse and all that and get out of this town as fast as possible.’

‘Or?’

‘We can go up to that door and knock.’

Quell rubbed at his chin, glanced back at a silent Mappo, and then once more eyed the tower. ‘This witchery-this curse here, Precious, that strikes when a woman comes of age.’

‘What about it? It’s a damned old one, a nasty one.’

‘Can you break it?’

‘Not likely. All we can hope to do is make the witch or warlock change her or his mind about it. The caster can surrender it a whole lot more easily than someone else can break it.’

‘And if we kill the caster?’

She shrugged. ‘Could go either way, Wizard. Poof! Gone. Or… not. Anyway, you’re stepping sideways, Quell. We were talking about this… this Provost.’

‘Not sideways, Witch. I was thinking, well, about you and Sweetest Sufferance and Faint, that’s all.’

All at once she felt as if she’d just swallowed a fistful of icy knuckles. Her throat ached, her stomach curdled. ‘Oh, shit.’

‘And since,’ Quell went on remorselessly, ‘it’s going to be a day or two before we can effect repairs-at best – well…’

‘I think we’d better knock,’ she said.

‘All right. Just let me, er, empty my bladder first.’

He walked off to the stone-lined gutter to his left. Mappo went off a few paces in the other direction, to rummage in his sack.

Precious Thimble squinted up at the tower. ‘Well,’ she whispered, ‘if you’re a Jaghut-and I think you are-you know we’re standing right here. And you can smell the magic on our breaths. Now, we’re not looking for trouble, but there’s no chance you don’t know nothing about that curse-we need to find that witch or warlock, you see, that nasty villager who made up this nasty curse, because we’re stuck here for a few days. Understand? There’s three women stuck here. And I’m one of them.’

‘You say something?’ Quell asked, returning.

‘Let’s go,’ she said as Mappo arrived, holding an enormous mace.

They walked to the door.

Halfway there, it swung open.

‘My mate,’ said the Provost, ’is buried in the yard below.’ He was standing at the window, looking out over the tumultuous seas warring with the shoals.

Quell grunted. ‘What yard?’ He leaned forward and peered down. ‘What yard?’

The Provost sighed. ‘It was there two days ago.’ He turned from the window and eyed the wizard.

Who did his best not to quail.