Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,974

contemplating guests at a damned picnic. The horse carried Toc straight for the hoary bastard, who slowly turned at the very last moment, as the horse skidded to a halt in a spray of ashes and mud.

Hood glanced down at the spatter on its frayed robes.

'Don't look at me!' Toc snarled as he collected up the reins once more. 'I was trying to get the beast going the other way!'

'You are my Herald, Toc the Younger, and I have need of you.'

'To do what, announce your impending nuptials? Where is the skeletal hag, anyway?'

'You have a message to deliver—'

'Deliver where? How? In case you haven't noticed, we're in a little trouble here, Hood. Gods, my eye – agh, I mean, the missing one – it's driving me mad!'

'Yes, your missing eye. About that—'

At that instant, Toc's horse reared in sudden terror, as a churning cloud lunged down like an enormous fist, engulfing a dying dragon directly overhead.

Swearing, his voice rising in fear, Toc fought to regain control of the beast as cloud and dragon tumbled to one side – the dragon pulled down to the thrashing legions, which closed in and swarmed it. In moments the dragon was gone.

The horse skittered and then settled—

Only to bolt once more, as in a burst of cold, bitter air, something else arrived.

What good could ever come of acceding to the suggestions of a corpse? This was the sort of question Glanno Tarp was good at asking, only he'd forgotten this time and it was funny how blind gibbering terror could do that. Warrens and warrens and portals and Gates and places nobody in their right minds might want to visit no matter how special the scenery – and no, dammit, he didn't know where they'd just ended up, but he could tell – oh yes, he could tell all right – that it wasn't a nice place.

Horses shrilling (but then, they always did that when arriving), carriage slapping down on to gritty mud in a chorus of outraged creaks, splinters and calamcophony, slewing this way and that – and the sky was coming down in giant balls of mercury and there were dragons up there and wyval and Hood knew what else—

Chains sawing back and forth, to the sides and straight up, all emerging from the ghastliest wagon Glanno had ever seen – loaded with more bodies than seemed reasonable, much less possible.

So of course he froze up all the brakes – what else was he supposed to do? And then bodies were flying past. Sweetest Sufferance, curled up into a soft flouncy bouncy ball that landed bouncily and rolled and rolled. That snarling hulk Gruntle, twisting in the air so that he could land on all fours – meow – and Faint, far less elegant for all her bountiferous beauty, going splat on her face all spreadeagled, silly girl. Amby and Jula flew past embraced like lovers, at least until the ground showed up and got between them. Reccanto Ilk fetched up beside Glanno, cracking the backrest of the bench.

'You idiot! We ain't tied ourselves! It was just dark and dark and nothing else and now you just go and drop us into—'

'Wasn't me, you clumsy pig!'

This argument didn't survive the fullest comprehension of their surroundings.

Reccanto Ilk slowly sat up. 'Holy shit.'

Glanno leapt to his feet. 'Cartographer!' But he'd forgotten about his splints. Yelping, he tottered, and then pitched forward on to the backs of the first two horses. They deftly stepped to either side so that he could fall a little more before getting tangled in all the crap down there, whereupon the horses eagerly moved back in an effort to crush him into the kind of pulp that could never again whip the reins.

Reccanto scrabbled to drag him back on to the bench. The splint bindings helped, although Glanno did plenty of shrieking in pain – at least he wasn't being crushed. Moments later he fetched up again on the splintered bench.

A wretched dead-looking Jaghut was walking up to Cartographer, who, lashed to a wheel, had come to rest with his head down, eyeing the Jaghut's muddy boots. 'I had begun to wonder,' the Jaghut said, 'if you had become lost.'

Pushing Reccanto aside, Glanno worked his way round to witness this fateful meeting – oh yes, that had to be Hood himself. Why, a damned family reunionebration!

Cartographer's upside-down smile seemed to send a nearby rider's horse into yet another panic, and the soldier swore impressively as he fought to quell