Tired but content, the beast fell in step beside the man-things.
The two cousins stood on the rooftop, looking out over the city. Conflagrations lit the night sky. A section of the Gadrobi District was aflame, with geysers of burning gas spouting high into the air. A short time earlier a strange atmospheric pressure had descended, driving down the fires — nothing was actually spreading, as far as could be determined, and the detonations had grown more infrequent. Even so, there was no one fighting the flames, which was, all things considered, hardly surprising.
In the courtyard below, Studious Lock was fussing about over the fallen com shy;pound guards, both of whom had been dragged out on to pallets. Miraculously, both still lived, although, having survived the assassins, there remained the grave chance that they would not survive Studlock’s ministrations. Scorch and Leff had set themselves the task of patrolling outside the estate, street by alley by street by alley, round and round, crossbows at the ready and in states of high excitement.
‘These Hounds,’ said Rallick, ‘are most unwelcome.’
‘It seems walls don’t stop them either. Any idea why they’re here?’
When Rallick did not reply, Torvald glanced over and saw that his cousin was staring up at the shattered moon.
Torvald did not follow his gaze. That mess unnerved him. Would those spinning chunks now begin raining down? Rallick had noted earlier that most of the fragments seemed to heading the other way, growing ever smaller. There was an shy;other moon that arced a slower path that seemed to suggest it was farther away, and while it appeared tiny its size was in fact unknown. For all anyone knew, it might be another world as big as this one, and maybe now it was doomed to a rain of death. Anyway, Torvald didn’t much like thinking about it.
‘Rallick-’
‘Never mind, Tor. I want you to stay here, within the walls. I doubt there will be any trouble — the Mistress has reawakened her wards.’
‘Tiserra-’
‘Is a clever woman, and a witch besides. She’ll be fine, and mostly will be wor shy;rying about you. Stay here, cousin, until the dawn.’
‘What about you?’
Rallick turned about then, and a moment later Torvald sensed that someone else had joined them, and he too swung round.
Vorcan stood, wrapped in a thick grey cloak. ‘The High Alchemist,’ she said to Rallick, ‘suggested we be close by. . in case we are needed. The time, I believe, has come.’
Rallick nodded. ‘Rooftops and wires, Mistress?’
She smiled. ‘You make me nostalgic. Please, take the lead.’
And yes, Torvald comprehended all the subtle layers beneath those gentle words, and he was pleased. Leave it to my cousin to find for himself the most dangerous woman alive. Well, then again, maybe I found myself the second most, especially if I forget to buy bread on my way home.
Edging round the corner of the wall, an alley behind them, a street before them, Scorch and Leff paused. No point in being careless now, even though there’d be no attack from any assassins any time soon, unless of course they did breed fast as botflies, and Scorch wasn’t sure if Leff had been joking with that, not sure at all.
The street was empty. No refugees, no guards, no murderous killers all bundled in black.
Most important of alclass="underline" no Hounds.
‘Damn,’ hissed Leff, ‘where are them beasts? What, you smell badder and worster than anyone else, Scorch? Is that the problem here? Shit, I want me a necklace of fangs. And maybe a paw to hang at my belt.’
‘A paw? More like a giant club making you walk tilted over. Now, that’d be funny to see, all right. Worth getting a knock or two taking one of ’em down, just to see that. A Hound’s paw, hah hah.’
‘You said you wanted a skull!’
‘Wasn’t planning to wear it, though. To make me a boat, just flip it upside down, right? I could paddle round the lake.’
‘Skulls don’t float. Well, maybe yours would, being cork.’
They set out on to the street.
‘I’d call it Seahound, what do you think?’
‘More like Sinkhound.’
‘You don’t know anything you think you know, Leff. That’s your problem. Al shy;ways has been, always will be.’
‘Wish there’d been twenty more of them assassins.’
‘There were, just not attacking us. We was the diversion, that’s what Tor said.’
‘We diverted ’em, all right.’
At that moment a Hound of Shadow slunk into view, not twenty paces away. Its sides were heaving, strips of flesh hanging down trailing threads of blood. Its mouth was crusted with red foam. It swung its head and eyed them.
In unison, Scorch and Leff lifted their crossbows into vertical positions, and spat on the barbed heads. Then they slowly settled the weapons back down, trained on the Hound.
Nostrils flaring, the beast flinched back. A moment later and it was gone.
‘Shit!’
‘I knew you smelled bad, damn you! We almost had it!’
‘Wasn’t me!’
‘It’s no fun wandering around with you, Scorch, no fun at all. Every chance we get, you go and mess it all up.’
‘Not on purpose. I like doing fun stuff as much as you do, I swear it!’
‘Next time,’ muttered Leff. ‘We shoot first and argue later.’
‘Good idea. Next time. We’ll do it right the next time.’
Beneath a moon that haunted him with terrifying memories, Cutter rode Coll’s horse at a slow trot down the centre of the street. In one hand he gripped the lance, but it felt awkward, too heavy. Not a weapon he’d ever used, and yet something made him reluctant to abandon it.
He could hear the Hounds of Shadow, unleashed like demons in his poor city, and this too stirred images from the past, but these were bittersweet. For she was in them, a presence dark, impossibly soft. He saw once more every one of her smiles, rare as they had been, and they stung like drops of acid on his soul.
He had been so lost, from the very morning he awoke in the monastery to find her gone. Oh, he’d delivered his brave face, standing there beside a god and unwill shy;ing to see the sympathy in Cotillion’s dark eyes. He had told himself that it was an act of courage to let her go, to give her the final decision. Courage and sacrifice.
He no longer believed that. There was no sacrifice made in being abandoned. There was no courage in doing nothing. Regardless of actual age, he had been so much younger than her. Young in that careless, senseless way. When thinking felt hard, unpleasant, until one learned to simply shy away from the effort, even as blind emotions raged, one conviction after another raised high on the shining shield of truth. Or what passed for truth; and he knew now that whatever it had been, truth it was not. Blustery, belligerent stands, all those pious poses — they seemed so childish now, so pathetic. I could have embraced the purest truth. Still, nobody would listen. The older you get, the thicker your walls. No wonder the young have grown so cynical. No wonder at all.
Oh, she stood there still, a dark figure in his memories, the flash of eyes, the beginnings of a smile even as she turned away. And he could forget nothing.
At this moment, Challice, having ascended to the top of the estate tower — that ghoulish Gadrobi embarrassment — now stepped out on to the roof, momentarily buffeted by a gust of smoke. She held in her hands the glass globe in which shone the prisoner moon, and she paused, lifting her gaze, and stared in wonder at the destruction now filling a third of the sky.
But she had left him with bad habits. Terrible ones, and they had proceeded to shape his entire life. Cutter remembered the expression on Rallick’s face — the shock and the dismay — as he looked down at the knife buried in his shoulder. The recognition — yes, Cutter was Apsalar’s creation, through and through. Yes, another man had been lost.