Toll the Hounds

Nimander’s eyes were drawn once more to the walls of ice. Black depths, shapes moving within. He staggered, reached out his hands-

‘Oh, don’t step in there-’

And then he was falling forward, his hands passing into the wall before him, no resistance at all. ‘Nimander, do not-’ Blackness.

Desra wandered round the wagon, drawing up to halt beside the ox. She set a hand on its back, felt the beast’s heat, the rippling with every twitch shedding the biting flies. She looked down into the animal’s eye, saw with a start how delicate its lashes. ‘You must take the world as it is.’ Andarist’s last words to her, before the world took him.

It wasn’t hard. People either had strength or they didn’t. The weak ones left her disgusted, welling with dark contempt. If they chose at all it was ever the wrong choice. They let the world break them time and again, then wondered-dull-eyed as this ox-why it was so cruel. But it wasn’t the world that was the problem, was it? It was stepping into the stampede’s path over and over again. It was learning nothing from anything. Nothing.

There were more weak people than strong ones. The weak were legion. Some just weren’t smart enough to cope with anything beyond meeting immediate needs: the field to sow, the harvest to bring on to the threshing floor, the beasts of burden to feed. The child to raise, the coin for the next jug of ale, the next knuckle bag of d’bayang. They didn’t see beyond the horizon. They didn’t even see the next valley over. The world outside was where things came from, things that caused trouble, that jarred the proper order of life. They weren’t interested in thinking. Depths were frightening, long roads a journey without purpose where one could end up lost, curling up to die in the ditch.

She had seen so many of the weak ones. They died unjustly in their thousands. Tens of thousands. They died because they worshipped ignorance and believed this blind god could make them safe.

Among the strong, only a few were worth paying attention to. Most were bullies. Their threats were physical or they were emotional, but the effect was the same-to make the victim feel weak. And it was the sell appointed task of these bullies to convince as many people as possible that they were inherently weak, and their lives ones of pathetic misery. Once this was done, the bully would then say: do as I say and I will keep you safe. I will be your strength… unless youanger me, If you anger me I will terrorize you. I might even kill you. There were plenty of these bastards, pig-eyed and blustery little boys in big bodies. Or fish-eyed nasty bitches although these ones, after proving to their victims how weak they were, would then lap up all the spilled blood. Delicate tongues flicking in and out. You had the physical bullies and the emotional bullies, and they both levelled In destroying lives.

No, she had no time for them. But there were others whose strength was of a much rarer kind. Not easy to find, because they revealed nothing. They were quiet. They often believed themselves to be much weaker than they were. But when pushed too hard, they surprised themselves, finding that they would not back away another step, that a wall had risen in their souls, unyielding, a barrier that could not be passed. To find one such as this was the most precious of discoveries.

Desra had played the bully more than once, as much from boredom as from anything else. She’d lapped up her share of blood.

She might well do the same with this one named Clip-if he ever returned to them, and there was no guarantee of that. Yes, she would use him and people like him, who imagined themselves strong but were, in truth, weak or so she would prove, eventually. Certainly, their blood didn’t taste any purer, any sweeter,

She had made her discovery, after all, of one whose strength was absolute, He lore whom she herself felt weak but in a most pleasant, most satisfying way one to whom she might surrender whatever she chose without fearing he would one day use it against her. Not this one.

Not Nimander Golit.

Desra saw Kallor emerge from the ruin, his agitation plain to see. Armour rustling, he marched between the scarecrows and up on to the road. Reaching the wagon, he pulled himself up with a worn boot on a wooden spoke, then paused to stare down at Clip. ‘You should throw this fool away;’ he said to Aranatha, who sat holding a thin cloth stretched out over the unconscious figure.

She smiled in answer and said nothing.

Desra frowned at Kallor. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Yes,’ he replied with a sneer, ‘the others.’

‘Well?’

He lifted himself over the slats. ‘The Jaghut decided to use them-unfortunately for them.’ Use?

Nenanda swung round from where he sat on the bench. ‘What Jaghut?’ he demanded.