Bill Martin

“To stand in the heart of Dragnipur, to stand above the very Gate of Darkness, this was, for Anomander Rake, a most final act. Perhaps it was desperation. Or a sacrifice beyond all mortal measure.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“The cascade of sudden deaths, inexplicable and outrageous accidents, miserable ends and terrible murders filled every abode, every corner and every hovel in a spreading tide, a most fatal flood creeping out through the hapless city on all sides. No age was spared, no weight of injustice tipped these scales. Death took them all: well born and destitute, the ill and the healthy, criminal and victim, the unloved and the cherished.

So many last breaths: coughed out, sighed, whimpered, bellowed in defiance, in disbelief, in numbed wonder. And if such breaths could coalesce, could form a think, dry, pungent, fugue of dismay, in the city on this night not a single globe of blue fire could be seen.

There were survivors. Many, many survivors - indeed, more survived than died - but alas, it was a close run thing, this measure, this fell harvest.

The god walked eastward, out from Gadrobi District and into Lakefront, and, from there, up into the Estates.

This night was not done. My, not done at all.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Anomander Rake walked into Darujhistan.

Howls rose like madness unleashed.

The Son of Darkness reached up and unsheathed Dragnipur.

Steam curled from the black blade, twisting into ephemeral chains that stretched out as he walked up the wide, empty street. Stretched out to drag behind him, and from each length others emerged and from those still more, a forest's worth of iron roots, snaking out, whispering over the cobbles.

He had never invited such a manifestation before. Reigning in that bleed of power had been an act of mercy, to all those who might witness it, who might comprehend its significance.

But on this night, Anomander Rake had other things on his mind.

Chains of smoke, chains and chains and chains, so many writhing in his wake that they filled the breadth of the street, that they snaked over and under and spilled out into side streets, alleys, beneath estate gates, beneath doors and through windows.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Leave him there, now, and ride one last ripple, out beyond the city, west along the lakeshore, out to a dusty, smoky pit where the less privileged labored through their shortened lives to keep such creatures as Gorlas Vidikas and Humble Measure at the level of comfort and entitlement they held to be righteous. And, to be fair, they labored as well to contribute to the general feeling of civilization, which is normally measured by technical wherewithal, a sense of progression, and the the notion of structural stability, little of which said laborers could themselves experience, save vicariously.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds