Toll the Hounds: Book Eight of The Malazan Book of the Fallen
Steven Erikson
Language: English
Pages: 1280
ISBN: 0765348853
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, it is said that love and death shall arrive dancing. It is summer and the heat is oppressive, but for the small round man in the faded red waistcoat, discomfiture is not just because of the sun. All is not well. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city streets like fiends of shadow. Assassins skulk in alleyways, but the quarry has turned and the hunters become the hunted.
Hidden hands pluck the strings of tyranny like a fell chorus. While the bards sing their tragic tales, somewhere in the distance can be heard the baying of Hounds...And in the distant city of Black Coral, where rules Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, ancient crimes awaken, intent on revenge. It seems Love and Death are indeed about to arrive...hand in hand, dancing.
A thrilling, harrowing novel of war, intrigue and dark, uncontrollable magic, Toll the Hounds is the new chapter in Erikson's monumental series - epic fantasy at its most imaginative and storytelling at its most exciting.
before her guests seated round the map-table. That smile collapsed into a sad frown - only slightly exaggerated - when Cutter twisted in his chair, too frustrated to accept the peaceable gesture. 'Oh, really,' Spite said, 'some maturity from you would be a relief right now. Our journey has been long, yes, but I do reiterate that delaying our disembarkation until dusk remains the wisest course.' 'I have no enemies here,' Cutter said in a belligerent growl. 'Only friends.' 'Perhaps that is true,'
rustled, swinging clear of his shins with each stride. The shadow he cast was narrow as a sword. In the cloudless sky wheeled vultures or ravens, or both, so high as to be nothing but specks, yet they tracked the solitary figure far below. Or perhaps they but skirled in the blue emptiness scanning the wastes for some dying, weakening creature. But this man was neither dying nor weak. He walked with the stiff purpose characteristic of the mad, the deranged. Madness, he would have noted, does not
caravan guard on extended leave Stonny Menackis, a caravan guard Harllo, a child Bedek, Harllo's 'uncle' Myrla, Harllo's 'aunt' Snell, a child Bainisk Venaz Scorch, a newly hired bodyguard Leff, a newly hired bodyguard Madrun, a newly hired compound guard Lazan Door, a newly hired compound guard Studlock (or Studious Lock), a castellan Humble Measure, a mysterious presence in Darujhistan's criminal underworld Chillbais, a demon Baruk, a member of the T'orrud Cabal Vorcan, Mistress of the
fluttering overhead as they danced to the horizon. Because it will not do to creep timorously into the future, no, one should leap, sail singing through the air, and who can say where one's feet will finally set down on this solid, unknown land? The boy hurried on, tracked by the dull eyes of the lepers in front of their hovels, squatting forlorn and forgotten each in a nest of flies when flies with singular poignancy expound the proof of cold-legged indifference. And the scrawny halfwild dogs
every now and then as it seemed to study the face opposite and especially the gaping dark hole of Quip Younger's mouth. A drunk was lying just inside the door, passed out or dead, the only other pa-tron present this early in the morning (excepting the rat). When she finally brought her attention back to her companions, she saw Faint studying her, one brow lifting. Sweetest Sufferance rubbed at her round face, her cheeks reminding her, oddly enough, of the dough her mother used to knead just