Toll the Hounds - Page 448/467

‘Skinner!’ he roared. ‘I’m coming for you! But first, these guys… ‘

Karsa Orlong sidestepped at the sudden arrival of some armoured warrior riding a monstrous, dead horse. Seeing the newcomer ride to meet the Hounds, he snarled and set off after him.

The lance angled down on the left side and so the Toblakai went to the rider’s right, eyes fixing on a Hound that clearly intended an attack on the horseman’s unprotected side.

Two beasts and two warriors all met at once.

The rider’s lance drove into a Hound’s throat just beneath the jaw, surging up-ward through the base of the skull, severing the spinal cord on its way to obliterate the back of the animal’s brain. The serrated lance head erupted from the skull in an explosion of grey pulp, blood and bone shards.

Karsa swung down, two-handed, as the other Hound arrived alongside the rider and reared to close jaws on the stranger’s right thigh. Flint blade sliced down through the spine, chopping halfway through a neck thick as a horse’s, before jamming-the Hound’s forward momentum, now pitching downward, dragged the weapon and Karsa with it as the animal slammed the cobbles.

At that instant the rider’s Jaghut horse collided chest to chest with a third hound. Bones shattered. The impact sent the rider over his horse’s head, dragging his lance free as he went. He struck and rolled off the back of the Hound-which seemed stunned, as the undead horse stumbled back.

Pulled down on to his knees, Karsa ducked the snapping attack of another Hound-and then the beast was past, as were all the others. The Toblakai rose, took two quick strides and thrust his sword into the chest of the dazed third Hound. Howling in pain, it staggered away from Karsa’s blade, blood fountaining out in the path of the withdrawing sword. The stranger had recovered and he now sank the lance into the gut of the writhing animal, the lance head tearing messily through soft tissue, fluids spilling down.

Something flashed in the eye-holes of the twin-scarred mask. ‘Well done, To-blukiii! Now let’s chase down the others!’ The two warriors swung round.

Cutter stared as seven Hounds swept round Karsa and the Seguleh. Now he didn’t even hold a lance- dammit- and he unsheathed a pair of knives as one of the beasts made straight for him.

A hand grasped the back of his shirt and yanked him back. Yelling in alarm, Cutter stumbled into someone’s short, brawny arms. He caught a momentary glimpse of a weathered face, eyes bulging, red moustache twitching beneath a bulbous nose-

Do I know this man?

And the one who had thrown him clear now lumbered forward, lifting an enor-mous two-handed axe. Barathol-

‘Wrong place for us!’ growled the man holding Cutter, and they began backing up.

Barathol recognized this beast-the one Chaur had tangled with, the one that had broken his friend’s skull. He almost sang his joy as he launched himself into its path, axe sweeping in a savage diagonal arc, low to high, as the Hound arrived, snarling, monstrous-

The axe edge bit deep into the beast’s lower jaw-another single instant’s delay and he would have caught its neck. As it was, the blow hammered the Hound’s head to one side.

The beast’s chest struck Barathol.

As if he’d been standing in the path of a bronze-sheathed battering ram, he was flung back, cartwheeling through the air, and was unconscious before he landed, fifteen paces behind the body of Anomander Rake.

The Hound had skidded, stumbled, wagging its head-its right mandible was broken, a row of jagged molars jutting out almost horizontal, blood splashing down.

For this battle, the beast was finished.

In the moment that Karsa and the stranger whirled round, a shadow swept over them, and both flinched down in the midst of a sudden wind, reeking of rot, gustingpast-

Tips of its wings clattering along the facings of buildings to either side, a dragon sailed above the street, talons striking like vipers. Each one closing round a Hound in a crushing, puncturing embrace, lifting the screaming animals into the air. The dragon’s head snapped down, jaws engulfing another-

And then the dragon thundered its wings and lifted skyward once more, carrying away three Hounds.

The creature’s attack had lasted but a handful of heartbeats, in the moment that Cutter was dragged back into Antsy’s arms-the Falari half carrying him in his charge towards the door of the shopfront to the right-and Barathol, his gaze fixed solely upon the hated Hound attacking him, swung his axe.

These three did not even see the dragon.

Samar Dev stared wide-eyed at the dragon as it heaved back into the sky with its three howling, snarling victims.

She was crouched over the motionless form of Traveller, Dassem Ultor, wielder of Vengeance, slayer of the Son of Darkness, who now lifted a sorrow-racked vis-age, bleak, broken-and then reached out and grasped her, tugged her close.