Toll the Hounds

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 knobby 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 masses of people. Even as they carved through like a ship cutting crazed seas, rugged, 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, whaling 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.

Damned corpses-they were riding through a sea of animated corpses, and it seemed that virtually every one of them wanted to book passage.

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 brass rung, Gruntle tugged loose one of his cut-lasses, 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-butting 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 masses 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 shut-tered 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, rep-tilian 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-cutlasses 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… Gods below, all of the dead, on the march-but where? To what war?