‘But Kruppe did not say “fist”. Kruppe was being more precise. Knuckles, yes? As in knuckles unencumbered by fingers. .’
The guard frowned, and then looked once more at that bizarre elongated dent in Hanut Orr’s forehead. He suddenly straightened. ‘Knuckles. . but no fingers. But. . I know that man!’
‘Indeed?’ Kruppe beamed. ‘Best make haste then, friend, and beware on this night of all nights, do beware.’
‘What? Beware what — what are you talking about?’
‘Why, the Toll, friend. Beware the Toll. Now go quickly — we shall take this poor body inside, until the morning when proper arrangements are, er, arranged. Such a multitude of sorrows this night! Go, friend, hunt down your nemesis! This is the very night for such a thing!’
Everything was pulsing in front of the guard’s eyes, and the pain had surged from his chest into his skull. He was finding it hard to even so much as think. But. . yes, he knew that man. Gods, what was his name?
It would come to him, but for now he hurried down the alley, and out into yet another bizarrely empty street. The name would come to him, but he knew where the bastard lived, he knew that much and wasn’t that enough for now? It was.
Throbbing, pounding pulses rocked the brain in his skull. Flashes of orange light, flushes of dry heat against his face — gods, he wasn’t feeling right, not right at all. There was an old cutter down the street from where he lived — after tonight, he should pay her a visit. Lances of agony along his limbs, but he wasn’t going to stop, not even for a rest.
He had the killer. Finally. Nothing was going to get in his way.
And so onward he stumbled, lantern swinging wildly.
Gaz marched up to the door, pushed it open and halted, looking round. The stupid woman hadn’t even lit the hearth — where the fuck was she? He made his way across the single room, three strides in all, to the back door, which he kicked open.
Sure enough, there she was, standing with her back to him, right there in front of that circle of flat stones she’d spent days and nights arranging and rearranging. As if she’d lost her mind, and the look in her eyes of late — well, they were in so much trouble now.
‘Thordy!’
She didn’t even turn round, simply said, ‘Come over here, husband.’
‘Thordy, there’s trouble. I messed up. We messed up — we got to think — we got to get out of here, out of the city — we got to run-’
‘We’re not running,’ she said.
He came up beside her. ‘Listen, you stupid woman-’
She casually raised an arm and slid something cold and biting across his throat. Gaz stared, reached up his battered, maimed hands, and felt hot blood streaming down from his neck. ‘Thordy?’ The word bubbled as it came out.
Gaz fell to his knees, and she stepped up behind him and with a gentle push sent him sprawling face down on to the circle of flat stones.
‘You were a good soldier,’ she said. ‘Collecting up so many lives.’
He was getting cold, icy cold. He tried to work his way back up, but there was no strength left in him, none at all.
‘And me,’ she went on, ‘I’ve been good too. The dreams — he made it all so sim shy;ple, so obvious. I’ve been a good mason, husband, getting it all ready. . for you. For him.’
The ice filling Gaz seemed to suddenly reach in, as deep inside him as it was possible to go, and he felt something — something that was his, and his alone, something that called itself
Thordy dropped the knife and stepped back as Hood, the Lord of Death, High King of the House of the Slain, Embracer of the Fallen, began to physically manifest on the stone dais before her. Tall, swathed in rotting robes of muted green, brown, and black. The face was hidden but the eyes were dull slits faintly lit in the midst of blackness, as was the smeared gleam of yellow tusks.
Hood now stood on the blood-splashed stones, in a decrepit garden in the district of Gadrobi, in the city of Darujhistan. Not a ghostly projection, not hidden behind veils of shielding powers, not even a spiritual visitation.
No, this was
Here, now.
And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo.
The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets, in the City of Blue Fire.
