Toll the Hounds Part 65

Master Quell.

Gruntle climbed down, using the spokes of the nearest wheel, and, his legs feeling shaky under him, made his way to the sorceror.

The man was still on his hands and knees, hacking out the last dregs of whatever had been in his stomach. 'Oh,' he gasped. 'My aching head.'

Faint came up alongside Gruntle. She'd been wearing an iron skullcap but she'd lost it, and now her hair hung in matted strands, framing her round face. 'I thought a d.a.m.ned tiger had landed on us,' she said, 'but it was you, putting the terror into a demon. So it's true, those tattoos aren't tattoos at all.'

Glanno Tarp had dropped down, dodging to avoid the snapping teeth of the nearest horses. 'Did you see Amby Bole go flying? G.o.ds, that was stupacular!'

Gruntle frowned. 'Stu what?'

'Stupidly spectacular,' explained Faint. 'Or spectacularly stupid. Are you Soletaken?'

He glanced at her, then set off to explore.

A task quickly accomplished. They were on an island. A very small island, less than fifty paces across. The sand was crushed coral, gleaming silver in the starlight. Two palm trees rose from the centre. In the surrounding shallows, a thousand paces out, ribbons of reef ran entirely round the atoll, breaking the surface like the spine of a sea serpent. More islands were visible, few bigger than the one they were on, stretching out like the beads of a broken necklace, the nearest one perhaps three thousand paces distant.

As he returned he saw a corpse plummeting down from the carriage roof to thump in the sand. After a moment it sat up. 'Oh,' it said.

The Trell emerged from the carriage, followed by the swamp witch, Precious Thimble, who looked ghostly pale as she stumbled a few steps, then promptly sat down on the sand. Seeing Gruntle, Mappo walked over.

'I gather,' he said, 'we encountered something unexpected in Hood's realm.'

'I wouldn't know,' Gruntle replied. 'It was my first visit.'

'Unexpected?' Faint snorted. 'That was insane all the dead in existence, on the march.'

'Where to?' Gruntle asked.

'Maybe not to, maybe from.' from.'

From? In retreat? Now that was an alarming notion. If the dead are on the run . . . If the dead are on the run . . .

'Used to be,' Faint mused, 'the realm of the dead was an easy ride. Peaceful. But in the last few years . . . something's going on.' She walked over to Master Quell. 'So, if that's not going to work, Quell, what now?'

The man, still on his hands and knees, looked up. 'You just don't get it, do you?'

'What?'

'We didn't even reach the d.a.m.ned gate.' gate.'

'But, then, what-' 'There wasn't any gate!' 'There wasn't any gate!' the mage shrieked. the mage shrieked.

A long silence followed.

Nearby, the undead man was collecting seash.e.l.ls.

Jula Bole's watery eyes fixed on Precious Thimble, dreamy with adoration. Seeing this, Amby did the same, trying to make his expression even more desirous, so that when she finally looked over she would see that he was the right one for her, the only one for her. As the moments stretched, the compet.i.tion grew fierce.

His left leg still ached, from the hip right down to his toes, and he had only one moccasin, but at least the sand was warm so that wasn't too bad.

Precious Thimble was in a meeting with Master Quell and that scary barbed man, and the hairy giant ogre named Mappo. These were the important people, he decided, and excepting Precious Thimble he wanted nothing to do with them. Standing too close to those folk was never healthy. Heads explode, hearts burst he'd seen it with his own eyes, back when he was a runt (but not nearly as much of a runt as Jula) and the family had decided at last to fight the Malazans who were showing up in their swamp like poison mushrooms. Buna Bole had been running things back then, before he got eaten by a toad, but it was a fact that Buna's next-to-closest brothers the ones who wanted to get closer all went and got themselves killed. Exploding heads. Bursting hearts. Boiling livers. It was the law of dodging, of course. Marshals and their sub-marshals were smart and smart meant fast, so when the arrows and quarrels and waves of magic flew, why, they dodged out of the way. Anybody round them, trying to be as smart but not smart at all and so just that much slower, well, they didn't dodge quick enough.

Jula finally sighed, announcing his defeat, and looked over at Amby. 'I can't believe I saved you.'

'I can't neither. I wouldn't of.'

'That's why I can't believe that's what I did. But then she's seen how brave I am, how generous and selfless. She's seen I'm better because she knows you wouldn't have done it.'

'Maybe I would've, and maybe she knows that, Jula. Besides, one of them sick smelly ones was trying to open the doors, and if it wasn't for me he'd of got in and that's what she really saw.'

'You didn't sc.r.a.pe that one off on purpose.'

'How do you know?'

'Because you b.u.t.ted him with your face, Amby.'

Amby tested his nose again and winced, and then he sneered. 'She saw what she saw, and what she saw wasn't you.' you.'

'She saw my hands, reaching down to drag you back up. She saw that.'

'She didn't. I made sure by covering them with, er, with my s.h.i.+rt.'

'You lie.'

'You lie.' lie.'

'No, you.'

'You!'

'You can say what you like, Amby, whatever you like. It was me saving you.'

'Pulling off my moccasin, you mean.'

'That was an accident.'

'Yeah, then where is it?'

'Fell off the side.'

'No it didn't. I checked your bag, Jula. You wasn't trying to save me at all, you was stealing my moccasin because it's your favourite moccasin. I want it back.'

'It's against the law to look in someone else's bag.'

'Swamp law. Does this look like a swamp?'

'That doesn't matter. You broke the law. Anyway, what you found was my spare moccasin.'

'Your one spare moccasin?'

'That's right.'

'Then why was it full of my love notes?'

'What love notes?'

'The ones me and her been writing back and forth. The ones I hid in my moccasin. Those ones, Jula.'

'What's obvious now is just how many times you been breaking the law. Because you been hiding your love notes which you write to yourself and n.o.body else you been hiding them in my spare moccasin!'

'Not that you'd ever look.'

'But I might, if I knew about it.'

'You didn't though, did you? Besides, you don't have a spare moccasin, because I stole it.'

'And that's why I stole it back!'

'You can't steal back what you didn't know was stolen in the first place. That's just stealing. And stealing's against the law.'

'Swamp law.'

'Your bag is is a swamp.' a swamp.'

'Hahahahaha-'

And Amby grinned at his own joke, and then he too laughed. 'Hahahahaha-'

Faint tugged the stopper free and took a swig, then handed the skin to Sweetest Sufferance. 'Listen to those idiots,' she said.

'I don't want to,' Sweetest Sufferance replied. And then she s.h.i.+vered. 'That was the first time, you know, them trying to get in my trousers like that.'

'Cursed with rigor mortis, maybe.'

She snorted. 'You kidding me? Whatever they had down there wasn't even real, like maybe sticks tied on or something.' She drank down some wine, then sighed and looked round. 'Pretty.'

'Our tiny piece of paradise.'

'We can watch the sun come up, at least. That will be nice.' She was quiet for a moment, before resuming, 'When Reccanto showed up, I thought he was helping. But now I think he was just using the situation to get a few handfuls of his own.'

'Are you surprised, Sweetie? He's a man.'

'With bad eyes.'

'Bad eyes and bad hands.'

'I might have to murder him.'

'Hold on,' said Faint, taking the skin back. 'He did did save you, cutting off arms and hands-' save you, cutting off arms and hands-'

'Eliminating the compet.i.tion.'

'Defending your honour, Sweetie.'

'If you say so.'

Faint replaced the stopper. 'G.o.ds below, Sweetie, what do you think we ran into back there?'

Sweetest Sufferance pursed her plump lips, long-lashed lids settling down over her eyes. 'Back in One Eye Cat, when I was a child, I was taken to a Dawn of Flies you know, those ceremonies from the Temple of Hood, when all the priests paint themselves in honey-'

'In some places,' cut in Faint, 'they use blood.'

'So I've heard. In One Eye Cat, it was honey, so that the flies stuck. Flies and wasps, actually. Anyway, I was with my grandfather, who'd been a soldier in the Revenants-'

'G.o.ds, it's been a long time since I last heard them mentioned!' Faint stared across at Sweetest Sufferance. 'Is this true? Your grandfather was with the Revenants?'

'So he always told it. When I was very young, I believed every word he said. When I was older, I didn't believe any of it. And now I'm still older, I've gone back to believing him. Things in his house, the carved flagstones, the broken masks he had on the wall . . . yes, Faint, I believe he was at that.'

'Commanded by a Seguleh-'

'An outlawed Seguleh, yes. Anyway, it was my grandfather who took me to watch his old company's patron temple and all the priests and priestesses doing their flies thing.'

'Wait. The Revenants were supposed to have all disappeared taken by Hood himself, to serve him in the realm of the dead. So what was your grandfather doing living in One Eye Cat?'

'He lost his sword arm in a battle. He'd been left for dead, and by the time anyone found him it was too late for any serious healing. So they seared the stump and retired him out. Now, you going to let me tell my tale or not?'

'Yes, fine. Sorry.'

'He said the priests were getting it all wrong, with that honey. The flies and wasps weren't the important thing in the ceremony. It was the blood honey, but that symbolized blood. The Revenants who were as good as Hood's own warrior-priests, in the mortal world anyway well, they were flagellants. Blood on the skin, life bled out to die on the skin that was the important detail. It's why Hood cherishes dead soldiers more than any other of the countless dead that stumble through the gate. The Merchants of Blood, the army that will fight on the hidden plain called Defiance Last.' She paused, then licked her lips. 'That's what the Dawn of Flies is about. A final battle, the dead gathered, on a hidden plain called Defiance Last.'

'So,' said Faint, feeling chilled by Sweetest Sufferance's story, 'maybe that's why Hood took the Revenants. Because that battle is coming.'

'Give me some more of that,' Sweetest Sufferance said, reaching for the wineskin.

Glanno Tarp nudged Reccanto Ilk. 'See 'em? They're talking about us. Well, me, mostly. It's gonna happen, Ilk, sooner or later, it's gonna happen.'

Reccanto Ilk squinted across at the man. 'What, they gonna kill you in your sleep?'

'Don't be an idiot. One a them's gonna ask me to forevermarry her.'

'And then then she'll kill you in your sleep. And then we can all slice up your share.' she'll kill you in your sleep. And then we can all slice up your share.'

'You think I didn't see how you gropered Sweetie?'

'How could you? You was driving!'

'There ain't nothing that I don't see, Ilk. That's what makes me such a goodiferous driver.'