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The wolf opened one eye to look upon him
’You’re supposed to be extinct,’ Toc murmured ’Vanished fro here?’
The ay was the scout’s only company, for the h her warren, northard a hundred and twenty leagues to the city of Callows, to replenish her supplies Supplies of what? Bath oil? He was unconvinced of the justification, but even his suspicious nature yielded hi, Garath, with her, as well as Mok Safe enough to leave Senu and Thurule, I suppose Tool dropped theh to make Envy break her own rule of a minimum of three servants?
Tool had vanished into a dusty swirl a half-bell earlier, off on another hunt The rening to engage the unranked Malazan in conversation They stood off to one side Watching the sunset? Relaxing at ra far to the north Dujek had chosen to ainst an unknown foe Onearm’s Host was Toc’s family, or at least what passed for family for a child born to an army The only world he knew, after all A family pursued by jackals of attrition What kind of ere they heading into? Vast, sweeping battles, or the crawling pace of contested forests, jagged ranges and sieges? He fought back another surge of i within hi and threatening to escape the barriers he’d raised in hisht, so that warren was chaotic -- so was the puppet that used it on me But why did it spit o, anyway? He had begun toof that belief left hiround To Moade T’lan I -- not for ade T’lan Imass, either One I’ve met before The only one I’ve met before And then there’s Lady Envy herself, and her daed coo there, Toc …
Anyway Noe’re travelling together North, to where each of us wants to be What luck What happy coincidence!
Toc disliked the notion of being used, of being manipulated He’d seen what that had cost his friend, Captain Paran Paran was tougher than me -- I saw that frooing He’d so inside hiet tough, and I’lanced over at the two Seguleh It seemed they were as loth to talk to each other as they were to anyone else Strong, silent types I hate those I didn’t before I do, now
So here I am, in the middle of nowhere, and the only truly sane creature in aze returned once’And where’s your fa the ay’s soft, brown gaze
The answer ca colours directly behind the socket of his lost eye -- colours that settled into an i three musk oxen, hunters and hunted mired deep in mud, trapped, doomed to die The point of vieas low, fro Whi filled Toc’sthe cold air
A pup’s confusion
Fleeing Wandering er
Then, standing before her, a figure Cowled, swathed in roughly woven black wool, a hand -- wrapped in leather straps, down to the very fingers -- reaching out Warle touch to the creature’s lowered forehead The touch, Toc realized, of an Elder God And a voice: You are the last, now The very last, and there will be need for you In ti to you … a lost spirit Tom from its flesh A suitable one, of course For that reason,one Patience, little one and in the ift…
The pup closed her eyes, sank into instant sleep -- and found herself no longer alone Loping across vast tundras, in the co drea hours, waking years, centuries, ed a mother of countless children in a tiures on distant horizons, seen but rarely, and never approached Cousins to cokor, white bendal, yellow’ haired ay’tog of the far south -- na’s is from those ay that had joined the T’lan I A whole other kind of immortality …