They did not break apart this time. The frenzied flurry did not abate, but went on, impossibly on. Two forces, neither yielding, neither prepared to draw a single step back.
And yet, for all the blinding speed, the glowing shower spraying out like the blood of iron, Samar Dev saw the death blow. She saw it clear. She saw its unde shy;niable truth — and somehow, somehow, it was all wrong.
Rake wide-legged, angling the pommel high before his face with Dragnipur’s point downward — as if to echo his opening stance — and higher still, and Dassem, his free hand joining the other upon his sword’s grip, throwing his entire weight into a crossways slash — the warrior bodily lifting as if about to take to the air and close upon Rake with an embrace, and his swing met the edge of Dragnipur at a full right angle — a single moment shaping a perfect cruciform fashioned by the two weapons’ colliding, and then the power of Dassem’s blow slammed Dragnipur back-
Driving its inside edge into Anomander Rake’s forehead, and then down through his face,
His gauntleted hands sprang away from the handle, yet Dragnipur remained jammed, seeming to erupt from his head, as he toppled backward, blood streaming down to flare from the tip as the Son of Darkness crashed down on his back.
Even this impact did not dislodge Dragnipur. The sword shivered, and now there was but one song, querulous and fading in the sudden stillness.
Blood boiled, turned black. The body lying on the cobbles did not move. Anomander Rake was dead.
Dassem Ultor slowly lowered his weapon, his chest heaving.
And then he cried out, in a voice so filled with anguish that it seemed to tear a jagged hole in the night air. This unhuman scream was joined by a chorus of shrieks as the Great Ravens exploded into flight, lifting like a massive feathered veil that whirled above the street, and then began a spinning descent. Cultists flinched away and crouched against building walls, their wordless chant drowned beneath the caterwauling cacophony of this black, glistening shroud that swept down like a curtain.
Dassem staggered back, and then pitched drunkenly to one side, his sword dragging in his wake, point skirling a snake track across the cobbles. He was brought up short by a pitted wall, and he sagged against it, burying his face in the shelter of a crooked arm that seemed to be all that held him upright.
Broken. Broken. They are broken.
Oh, gods forgive them, they are broken.
Karsa Orlong shocked her then, as he twisted to one side and pointedly spat on to the street. ‘Cheated,’ he said. ‘Cheated!’
She stared at him, aghast. She did not know what he meant — but no, she did. Yes, she did. ‘Karsa, what just happened?’ Wrong. It was wrong. ‘I saw — I saw-’
‘You saw true,’ he said, baring his teeth, his gaze fixed upon that fallen body. ‘As did Traveller, and see what it has done to him.’
The area surrounding the corpse of Anomander Rake churned with Great Ravens — although not one drew close enough to touch the cooling flesh — and now the five Hounds of Shadows, not one spared of wounds, closed in to push the birds aside, as if to form a protective circle around Anomander Rake.
No, not him. The sword. .
Unease stirred awake in Samar Dev. ‘This is not over.’
A beast can sense weakness. A beast knows the moment of vulnerability, and op shy;portunity. A beast knows when to strike.
The moon died and, in dying, began its torturous rebirth. The cosmos is indif shy;ferent 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 procla shy;mation 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.