Toll the Hounds

Finished eating the heart, he licked his fingers. Rose once more and retrieved the scabbard, sheathing the sword. The drumbeat was fading, although pain still tormented his neck, shoulders and back — muscles and tendons that had only begun their complaint at the savage abuse they had suffered. He washed the one-sleeved shirt then wrung it — tenderly, since it was threadbare and liable to fall apart under too rigorous a ministration. Slipping it on, he then rinsed out the chain hauberk before rolling it up and settling it down over one shoulder.

Then he set out, inland.

Above the crest of the shoreline, he found before him a wasteland. Rock, scrub, drifts of ash and, in the distance, ravines and outcrops of broken bedrock, a dimpling of the landscape into chaotic folds that lifted into raw, jagged hills.

Far to his left — northward — a grainy, diffuse haze marred the sky above or beyond more hills.

He squinted, studied that haze for thirty heartbeats.

Patches of dusty blue above him now, as the storm rolled westward over the sea, its downpour of leaves trailing like claw marks in the air, staining the whitecaps beyond the reef. The wind lost some of its chill bite as the sun finally broke through, promising its own assault on mortal flesh.

The man’s skin was dark, for he had been born on a savannah. His was a warrior’s build, the muscles lean and sharply defined on his frame. His height was average, though something in his posture made him seem taller. His even features were ravaged by depredation, but already the rich meat of the bear’s heart had begun to fill that expression with stolid, indomitable strength.

Still, the wounds blazed with ferocious heat. And he knew, then, that fever was not far off. He could see nothing nearby in which to take shelter, to hole up out of the sun. Among the ravines, perhaps, the chance of caves, overhangs. Yet. . fifteen hundred paces away, if not more.

Could he make it that far?

He would have to.

Dying was unthinkable, and that was no exaggeration. When a man has forsaken Hood, the final gate is closed. Oblivion or the torment of a journey without end — there was no telling what fate awaited such a man.

In any case, Traveller was in no hurry to discover an answer. No, he would invite Hood to find it himself.

It was the least he could do.

Slinging the scabbard’s rope-belt over his left shoulder, checking that the sword named Vengeance was snug within it, its plain grip within easy reach, he set out across the barren plain.

In his wake, stripped branches spun and twisted down from the heaving clouds, plunging into the waves, as it torn from the moon itself.

The clearing bore the unmistakable furrows of ploughs beneath the waist-high marsh grasses, each ribbon catching at their feet as they pushed through the thick stalks. The wreckage of a grain shed rose from brush at the far end, its roof collapsed with a sapling rising from the floor, as exuberant as any conqueror. Yet such signs were, thus far, all that remained of whatever tribe had once dwelt in this forest. Fragments of deliberate will gouged into the wilderness, but the will had failed. In another hundred years, Nimander knew, all evidence would be entirely erased. Was the ephemeral visage of civilization reason for fear? Or, perhaps, relief? That all victories were ultimately transitory in the face of patient nature might well be cause for optimism. No wound was too deep to heal. No outrage too horrendous to one day be irrelevant.

Nimander wondered if he had discovered the face of the one true god. Naught else but time, this ever changing and yet changeless tyrant against whom no crea shy;ure could win. Before whom even trees, stone and air must one day bow. There would be a last dawn, a last sunset, each kneeling in final surrender. Yes, time was indeed god, playing the same games with lowly insects as it did with mountains and the fools who would carve fastnesses into them. At peace with every scale, pleased by the rapid patter of a rat’s heart and the slow sighing of devouring wind against stone. Content with a star’s burgeoning light and the swift death of a raindrop on a desert floor.

‘What has earned the smile, cousin?’

He glanced over at Skintick. ‘Blessed with revelation, I think.’

‘A miracle, then. I think that I too am converted.’

‘You might want to change your mind — I do not believe my newfound god cares for worship, or answers any prayers no matter how fervent.’

‘What’s so unique about that?’

Nimander grunted. ‘Perhaps I deserved that.’

‘Oh, you are too quick to jump into the path of what might wound — even when wounding was never the intention. I am still open to tossing in with your worship of your newfound god, Nimander. Why not?’

Behind them, Desra snorted. ‘I will tell you two what to worship. Power. When it is of such magnitude as to leave you free to do as you will.’

‘Such freedom is ever a delusion, sister,’ Skintick said.

‘It is the only freedom that is not a delusion, fool.’