And then he cried out, in a voice so filled with anguish that it seemed to tear a jagged hole in the night air. This unhuman scream was joined by a chorus of shrieks as the Great Ravens exploded into flight, lifting like a massive feathered veil that whirled above the street, and then began a spinning descent. Cultists flinched away and crouched against building walls, their wordless chant drowned beneath the caterwauling cacophony of this black, glistening shroud that swept down like a curtain.
Dassem staggered back, and then pitched drunkenly to one side, his sword dragging in his wake, point skirling a snake track across the cobbles. He was brought up short by a pitted wall, and he sagged against it, burying his face in the shelter of a crooked arm that seemed to be all that held him upright.
Broken. Broken. They are broken.
Oh, gods forgive them, they are broken.
Karsa Orlong shocked her then, as he twisted to one side and pointedly spat on to the street. "Cheated," he said. "Cheated!"
She stared at him, aghast. She did not know what he meant – but no, she did. Yes, she did. "Karsa, what just happened?" Wrong, it was wrong. "I saw – I saw—"
"You saw true," he said, baring his teeth, his gaze fixed upon that fallen body. "As did Traveller, and see what it has done to him."
Toll the Hounds, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #8)
