Toll the Hounds полностью

Aranatha opened her eyes, sat up, then reached out to touch Nimander’s shoulder. He awoke, looked at her with a question in his eyes.

‘He has killed Kedeviss,’ she said, the words soft as a breath.

Nimander paled.

‘She was right,’ Aranatha went on, ‘and now we must be careful. Say nothing to anyone else, not yet, or you will see us all die.’

‘Kedeviss.’

‘He has carried her body to a crevasse, and thrown her into it, and now he makes signs on the ground to show her careless steps, the way the edge gave way. He will come to us in shock and grief. Nimander, you must display no suspicion, do you understand?’

And she saw that his own grief would sweep all else aside — at least for now — which was good. Necessary. And that the anger within him, the rage destined to come, would be slow to build, and as it did she would speak to him again, and give him the strength he would need.

Kedeviss had been the first to see the truth — or so it might have seemed. But Aranatha knew that Nimander’s innocence was not some innate flaw, not some fatal weakness. No, his innocence was a choice he had made. The very path of his life. And he had his reasons for that.

Easy to see such a thing and misunderstand it. Easy to see it as a failing, and to then believe him irresolute.

Clip had made this error from the very beginning. And so too this Dying God, who knew only what Clip believed, and thought it truth.

She looked down and saw tears held back, waiting for Clip’s sudden arrival with his tragic news, and Aranatha nodded and turned away, to feign sleep.

Somewhere beyond the camp waited a soul, motionless as a startled hare. This was sad. Aranatha had loved Kedeviss dearly, had admired her cleverness, her percipience. Had cherished her loyalty to Nimander — even though Kedeviss had perhaps suspected the strange circumstances surrounding Phaed’s death, and had seen how Phaed and her secrets haunted Nimander still.

When one can possess loyalty even in the straits of full, brutal understanding, then that one understands all there is to understand about compassion.

Kedeviss, you were a gift. And now your soul waits, as it must. For this is the fate of the Tiste Andii. Our fate. We will wait.

Until the wait is over.

Endest Silann stood with his back to the rising sun. And to the city of Black Coral. The air was chill, damp with night’s breath, and the road wending out from the gates that followed the coastline of the Cut was a bleak, colourless ribbon that snaked into stands of dark conifers half a league to the west. Empty of traffic.

The cloak of eternal darkness shrouding the city blocked the sun’s stretching rays, although the western flanks of the jumbled slope to their right was showing gilt edges; and far off to the left, the gloom of the Cut steamed white from the smooth, black surface.

‘There will be,’ said Anomander Rake, ‘unpleasantness.’

‘I know, Lord.’

‘It was an unanticipated complication.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I will walk,’ said Rake, ‘until I reach the tree line. Out of sight, at least until then.’

‘Have you waited too long, Lord?’

‘No.’

‘That is well, then.’

Anomander Rake rested a hand on Endest’s shoulder. ‘You have ever been, my friend, more than I deserve.’

Endest Silann could only shake his head, refuting that.

‘If we are to live,’ Rake went on, ‘we must take risks. Else our lives become deaths in all but name. There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail — should we fall — we will know that we have lived.’

Endest nodded, unable to speak. There should be tears streaming down his face, but he was dry inside — his skull, behind his eyes, all. . dry. Despair was a furnace where everything had burned up, where everything was ashes, but the heat remained, scalding, brittle and fractious.

‘The day has begun.’ Rake withdrew his hand and pulled on his gauntlets. ‘This walk, along this path. . I will take pleasure in it, my friend. Knowing that you stand here to see me off.’

And the Son of Darkness set out.

Endest Silann watched. The warrior with his long silver hair flowing, his leather cloak flaring out. Dragnipur a scabbarded slash.

Blue seeped into the sky, shadows in retreat along the slope. Gold painted the tops of the tree line where the road slipped in. At the very edge, Anomander Rake paused, turned about and raised one hand high.

Endest Silann did the same, but the gesture was so weak it made him gasp, and his arm faltered.

And then the distant figure swung round.

And vanished beneath the trees.