A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

said Master Quell. 'I'm still uneasy.'
    'You have few other options, Wizard. The carriage is
damaged. The marital argument is even now extending
beyond the town's limits and will soon engulf this entire
island in a conflagration of disputing versions of who-said-what.'
    'He's smarter than he was before,' observed Faint.
    'That's true,' said Reccanto.
    'I gather more of myself, yes,' said Cartographer, giving
them all another ghastly smile.
    Flinches all round.
    'How come,' asked Quell, 'you never showed this talent
before?'
    The corpse straightened. 'I have displayed numerous
talents on this journey, each one appropriate to the
situation at the time. Have you forgotten the coconuts?'
    Faint rolled her eyes and said, 'How could we forget the
coconuts?'
    'Besides,' resumed Cartographer, 'as an uninvited guest,
I feel a pressing need to contribute to the enterprise.' One
ragged hand gestured at the scribbles on the track. 'Invest
power into this, Master Quell, and we can be on our way.'
    'To somewhere we can stop for a time?'
    Cartographer shrugged. 'I am not able to predict the
situations awaiting us, only that in general they are not
particularly threatening.'
    Quell looked as if he needed to piss again. Instead, he
turned back to the carriage. 'Everyone on board. Precious,
you're with me as usual. Same for you, Mappo.' He paused.
'The rest of you, get ready.'
    'For what?' Gruntle asked.
    'For anything, of course.'
    Reccanto, still strutting after his extraordinary on-the-knees
skewering lunge, slapped one hand on the huge
warrior's back. 'Don't fret, friend, you'll get used to all this
eventually. Unless,' he added, 'it kills you first.'
    Cartographer held up some ropes. 'Who will kindly tie
me to a wheel?'
    Night sweeps across the Dwelling Plain. Along the vast
vault of the sky the stars are faint, smudged, as if reluctant
to sharpen to knife points amidst the strangely heavy darkness.
The coyotes mute their cries for this night. Wolves
flee half blind in formless terror, and some will run until
their hearts burst.
    South of the western tail of the Gadrobi Hills, a lone
chain-clad figure pauses in his journey, seeing at last the
faint bluish glow that is the ever-beating heart of the great,
legendary city.
    Darujhistan.
    Three leagues west of him, three more strangers gaze
upon that selfsame glow, and in the eyes of one of them
– unseen by the others – there is such dread, such anguish,
as would crush the soul of a lesser man. His gauntleted
hand steals again and again to the leather-wrapped grip of
his sword.
    He tells himself that vengeance answered is peace won,
but even he does not quite believe that. Beyond the city
awaiting him, the future is a vast absence, a void he now
believes he will never see, much less stride into.
    Yet, for all the tumultuous, seething forces of will within
these arrayed strangers, none among them is the cause of
the night's thick, palpable silence.
    Less than a league north of the three strangers, seven
Hounds are arrayed along a ridge, baleful eyes fixed upon
the glow of the city.
    The beasts possess the capacity to detect a rabbit's rapid
heartbeat half a league away, so they hear well the tolling
of the twelfth bell, announcing the arrival of midnight in
the city of Darujhistan.
    And as one, the seven Hounds lift their massive heads,
and give voice to a howl.
    The stars are struck into blazing sparks overhead. The
High King halts in mid-stride, and the ancient, stubborn
blood in his veins and arteries suddenly floods cold as ice.
For the first time in this journey, Kallor knows a moment
of fear.
    Havok's long head snaps up and the beast skitters to one
side. Astride the animal, Samar Dev makes a desperate
grab for Karsa, lest she be thrown to the ground, and she
can feel the sudden tautness of every muscle in the huge
warrior.
    Ahead of them, Traveller pauses, his shoulders hunching
as if those all too close howls even now lash at his back.
Then he shakes himself, and marches on.
    Atop a cornice of a gate facing the south plain, a squat
toad-like demon lifts its head, pointed ears suddenly alert.
    Then, as the howls slowly fade, the demon settles once
more.
    Although now, at last, it can feel, rising up from the very
earth, rising up to shiver along its bones, the rumble of
heavy paws on distant ground.
    Drawing closer, ever closer.
    In the city behind Chillbais, the twelfth bell clangs its
sonorous note. Another season's grand fête is almost gone.
One more day in the name of