A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

over.'
    A beast can sense weakness. A beast knows the moment
of vulnerability, and opportunity. A beast knows when to
strike.
    The moon died and, in dying, began its torturous rebirth.
The cosmos is indifferent to the petty squabbles of what
crawls, what whimpers, what bleeds and what breathes. It
has flung out its fates on the strands of immutable laws,
and in the skirling unravelling of millions of years, tens of
millions, each fate will out. In its time, it will out.
    Something massive had arrived from the depths of the
blackness beyond and struck the moon a short time back.
An initial eruption from the impact had briefly showered
the moon's companion world with fragments, but it was the
shock-wave that delivered the stricken moon's death knell,
and this took time. Deep in the core, vast tides of energy
opened immense fissures. Concussive forces shattered the
crust. Energy was absorbed until nothing more could be
borne. The moon blew apart.
    Leave it to the flit of eager minds to find prophetic significance.
The cosmos does not care. The fates will not
crack a smile.
    From a thousand sources, now, reflected sunlight danced
wild upon the blue, green and ochre world far below.
Shadows were devoured, darkness flushed away. Night
itself broke into fragments.
    In the city of Darujhistan, light was everywhere, like a
god's fingers. Brushing, prodding, poking, driving down
into alleys that had never seen the sun. And each assault
shattered darkness and shadow both. Each invasion ignited ,
in a proclamation of power.
    Dearest serendipity, yet not an opportunity to be ignored,
no. Not on this night. Not in the city of Darujhistan.
    Pallid and Lock, their bone-white hides sprayed in
crimson, their skin hanging in strips in places, with
horrid puncture wounds red-rimmed black holes in their
necks and elsewhere, padded side by side down the main
avenue running parallel to the lake shore. Hurting, but
undaunted.
    Light bloomed, ran like water across their path.
    Light tilted shafts down between buildings, and some
of these flashed, and from those flashes more Hounds
emerged.
    Behold, the Hounds of Light have arrived.
    What, the world shifts unexpectedly? Without hint,
without inkling? How terrible, how unexpected! How
perfectly . . . natural. Rules abound, laws carved into
stones, but they are naught but delusions. Witness the ones
who do not care. See the mocking awareness in their fiery
eyes. Rail at the unknown, even as jaws open wide for the
warbling throat.
    But give the round man no grief. He spreads wide pudgy
hands. He shrugs. He saves his sly smile for . . . why, for
thee!
    Venasara and Cast were the first to join Pallid and Lock.
Cast was almost twice the weight of Lock, while Venasara
still bore the signs of the ordeals of raising a squabble of
young. Ultama soon arrived, long-limbed, sleek, broad head
held low at the end of a sinewy neck. Ultama's oversized
upper canines jutted down. The exposed portions of the
fangs, dagger-length, gleamed white.
    At an intersection ahead waited Jalan, Grasp and
Hanas, the youngest three of the pack, hackles high and
eyes flashing with vicious excitement.
    Gait and then Ghennan were the last to arrive, the
lord and the lady of the pack, more silver than white, with
scarred muzzles misshapen by centuries of dread battle.
These two wore thick collars of black leather scattered
with pearls and opals – although far fewer than had once
adorned these proud bands.
    Ten in number. Each one a match for any Hound of
Shadow.
    Of whom there were, ah, but five.
    No one stepped into the path of these beasts. They were
coming to claim a prize for their master.
    Dragnipur. A sword of perfect justice.
    Such perfect justice.
    High in the sky above the city, tilting, sliding and dipping
to avoid each shaft of infernal light, an undead dragon
tracked the Hounds of Light.
    Tulas Shorn was not pleased, even as something flowed
sweet as a stream through its mind. A kind of blessing,
alighting with faint, lilting notes of wonder.
    Tulas Shorn had never known that Hood, Lord of the
Slain, could prove so . . . generous.
    Or perhaps it was nothing more than a Jaghut's talent for
anticipating the worst.
    As an Elder might observe, there is nothing worse than
a suspicious dragon.
    Do not grieve. Hold close such propensities for a while
longer. The time will come.
    Some gifts are evil. Others are not, but what they are
remains to be discovered.
    Rest easy for the next few moments, for there is more