Toll the Hounds

Suddenly the shafts pressed hard against her and shoved.

Shouting in alarm, Picker pitched forward, slid on the damp floor as if it was layered in grease. She fought to grasp hold of something, but nothing touched her flailing hands-and then the floor vanished beneath her, and she was falling.

Harllo’s sudden unexpected plummet ended quickly amidst sharp-edged boulders. Gashes ripped across his back, one thigh and the ankle of the same leg. The impact left him stunned. He vaguely heard something strike the rocks nearby, a terrible snapping, crunching sound.

Eventually, he stirred. The pain from the wounds was fierce, and he could feel blood trickling down, but it seemed he’d broken no bones. He crawled slowly to where he’d heard Bainisk land, and heard ragged breathing.

When his probing hands touched warm flesh, he found it wet, broken. And at the brush of his fingertips it flinched away.

‘Hiiinisk!’

A low groan, and then a gasp.

‘Bainisk, it’s me. We made it down-we got away.’

‘Harllo?’ The voice was awful in its weakness, its pain. ‘Tell me…’

He pulled himself up along Bainisk, his eyes making out a rough shape. He found Bainisk’s face, tilted towards him, and Harllo drew himself on to his knees, and then he eased up his friend’s head-feeling strange shards moving under his hands, beneath Bainisk’s blood-matted hair-and then, as gently as he could manage, he settled the head on to his lap.

‘Bainisk.’

The face was crushed along one side. It was a miracle that he could speak at all. ‘I dreamed,’ he whispered. ‘I dreamed of the city. Floating on the lake… going wherever the waves go. Tell me, Harllo, tell me about the city.’

‘You’ll see it soon enough-’

‘Tell me.’

Harllo stroked his friend’s brow. ‘In the city… Bainisk, oh, in the city, there’s shops and everybody has all the money they need and you can buy whatever you want. There’s gold and silver, beautiful silver, and the people are happy to give it away to anyone they like. No one ever argues about anything-why should they? There’s no hunger, no hurts, no hurts of any kind, Bainisk. In the city every child has a mother and a father… and the mother loves her son for ever and ever and the father doesn’t rape her. And you can just pick them for yourself. A beautiful mother, a strong, handsome father-they’d be so happy to take care of you-you’ll see, you’ll see.

‘They’d see how good you are. They’d see right through to your heart, and see it pure and golden, because all you ever wanted to do was to help out, because you were a burden to them and you didn’t want that, and maybe if you helped enough they’d love you, and want you to be with them, to live with them. And when it didn’t work, well, it just means you have to work harder. Do more, do everything.

‘Oh, Bainisk, the city… there are mothers…’.’

He stopped then, for Bainisk had stopped breathing. He was perfectly still, his whole broken-up body folded over the sharp rocks, his head so heavy in Harllo’s lap.

Leave them there, now.

The city, ah, the city. As dusk closes in, the blue fires awaken. Figures stand in a cemetery surrounded by squat Daru crypts, and they are silent as they watch the workers sealing the door once more. Starlings flit overhead.

Down at the harbour a woman steps lithely on to the dock and breathes deep the squalid air, and then sets out to find her sister.

Scorch and Leff stand nervously at the gate of an estate. They’re not talking much these nights. Within the compound, Tarvald Nom paces. He is not sure i f he should go home. The night has begun orange, heavy, and his nerves are a mess. Madrun and Lazan Door are throwing knuckles against a wall, while Studious Lock stands on a balcony, watching.

Challice Vidikas sits in her bedroom, holding a glass globe and staring at the trapped moon within its crystal clear sphere.

In a room above a bar Blend sits beside the motionless form of her lover, and weeps.

Below, Duiker slowly looks up as Fisher, cradling a lute, begins a song.

In the Phoenix Inn, an old, worn-out woman, head pounding, shambles to her small cubicle and sinks down on to the bed. There were loves in the world that never found voice. There were secrets never unveiled, and what would have been the point of that? She was no languid beauty. She was no genius wit. Courage failed her again and again, but not this time, as she drew sharp blades lengthways up her wrists, at precise angles, and watched as life flowed away. In Irilta’s mind, this last gesture was but a formality.

Passing through Two-Ox Gate, Bellam Nom sets out on the road. From a hovel among the lepers he hears someone softly sobbing. The wind has died, the smell of rotting flesh hangs thick and motionless. He hurries on, as the young are wont to do.