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

Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #8) Page 352

‘Just passing through,’ Quell said. ‘But our carriage needs repairs-and we got wounded-’

‘I am about to destroy this village and everyone in it-does that bother you?’

Quell licked his muddy lips, made a face, and then said, ‘That depends if you’re including us in your plans of slaughter.’

‘Are you pirates?’

‘No.’

‘Wreckers?’

‘No.’

‘Necromancers?’

‘No.’

Then,’ she said, with another glare at the Boles, ‘I suppose you can live.’

‘Your husband says even if he dies, the curse will persist.’

She bared stained tusks. ‘He’s lying.’

Quell glanced at Gruntle, who shrugged in return and said, ‘I’m not happy with the idea of pointless slaughter, but then, wreckers are the scum of humanity.’

The Jaghut woman walked towards the stone wall. They watched her.

‘Master Quell,’ said Glanno Tarp, ‘got any splints?’

Quell shot Gruntle another look. ‘Told you, the cheap bastard.’

At last the sun rose, lifting a rim of fire above the horizon on this the last day of the wrecker village on the Reach of Woe.

From a window of the tower, Bedusk Pall Kovuss Agape stood watching his wife approaching up the street. ‘Oh,’ he murmured, ‘I’m in trouble now.’

In the moments before dawn, Kedeviss rose from her blankets and walked out into the darkness. She could make out the shape of him, sitting on a large boulder and staring northward. Rings spun on chains, glittering like snared-stars.

Her moccasins on the gravel scree gave her away and she saw him twist round to watch her approach.

‘You no longer sleep,’ she said.

To this observation, Clip said nothing.

‘Something has happened to you,’ she continued. ‘When you awoke in Bastion, you were… changed. I thought it was some sort of residue from the possession. Now, I am not so sure.’

He put away the chain and rings and then slid down from the boulder, landing lightly and taking a moment to straighten his cloak. ‘Of them all,’ he said in a low voice, ‘you, Kedeviss, are the sharpest. You see what the others do not.’

‘I make a point of paying attention. You’ve hidden yourself well, Clip-or whoever you now are.’

‘Not well enough, it seems.’

‘What do you plan to do?’ she asked him. ‘Anomander Rake will see clearly, the moment he sets his eyes upon you. And no doubt there will be others.’

‘I was Herald of Dark,’ he said.

‘I doubt it,’ she said.

‘I was Mortal Sword to the Black-Winged Lord, to Rake himself.’

‘He didn’t choose you, though, did he? You worshipped a god who never an-swered, not a single prayer. A god who, in all likelihood, never even knew you existed.’

‘And for that,’ whispered Clip, ‘he will answer.’

Her brows rose. ‘Is this a quest for vengeance? If we had known-’

‘What you knew or didn’t know is irrelevant.’

‘A Mortal Sword serves.’

‘I said, Kedeviss, I was a Mortal Sword.’

‘No longer, then. Very well, Clip, what are you now?’

In the grainy half-light she saw him smile, and something dark veiled his eyes. ‘One day, in the sky over Bastion, a warren opened. A machine tumbled out, and down-’

She nodded. ‘Yes, we saw that machine.’

‘The one within brought with him a child god-oh, not deliberately. No, the mechanism of his sky carriage, in creating gates, in travelling from realm to realm, by its very nature cast a net, a net that captured this child god. And draped it here,’

‘And this traveller-what happened to him?’

Clip shrugged.

She studied him, head cocked to one side. ‘We failed, didn’t we?’

He eyed her, as if faintly amused.

‘We thought we’d driven the Dying God from you-instead, we drove him deeper. By destroying the cavern realm where he dwelt.’

‘You ended his pain, Kedeviss,’ said Clip. ‘Leaving only his… hunger.’

‘Rake will destroy you. Nor,’ she added, ‘will we accompany you to Black Coral. Go your own way, godling. We shall find our own way there-’

He was smiling. ‘Before me? Shall we race, Kedeviss-me with my hunger and you with your warning? Rake does not frighten me-the Tiste Andii do not frighten me. When they see me, they will see naught but kin-until it is too late.’