Ahira's Hangar

Hounds of Shadow

There is all sorts of weird and bizarre stuff going on all over the place in Malaz City and on Malaz Island. The Shadow Realm and the real world (so to speak ) are bleeding over into each other, so inexplicable strangely odd crap is happening.

characters:
Tobin the fisherman
Riders
Kiska, the girl who wants to be a Claw
Edgewalker, immortal Shadow being
Hounds
Obo, legandary ogerlike person from Malaz' past
Agayla, powerful Malaz mage who hides her gifts
Malaz marines fresh from the Seven Cities
Temper - veteran
Coop - tavern owner
Seal - former military healer
military guys running amok in a frat boy rampage
a priest of Fener
Shadow cultists
Talons
a military group of about forty
a lamialike monster from Shadow
dead nasty guys from Shadow
Hattar, a bodyguard
Artan, master of Hattar

Tobin the fisherman is still heading out to sea, singing. The Stormriders and their ice are now nearly to him.

Kiska gets caught by shadows and is taken to the Shadow Realm. She sees a glacier there, and is helped to get back to Malaz by Edgewalker. She manages to get to Agayla's house. Agayla is a very powerful mage who hides her gifts and has thus far been spared in the purges. Kiska tells Agayla what has been going on that night, and Agayla tells Kiska about some of the political maneuvering that has been going on with the high muckitymucks of the Empire. It looks like it might all be coming to a head and a huge power grab by Surly. Agayla sees ice in her skrying, and has to leave. She gives Kiska a message for the man she saw with the cutter, and sends her off into the night.

Temper takes the wounded Coop to Seal's house. Seal was a medical officer for the Malaz military. Temper reclaims his fighting gear from Seal. Kiska has various adventures and is captured twice, the second time by the very man she is looking for. She gives him the messages she carries from Agayla, the murdered guy named Oleg, and Edgewalker. The man, who calls himself an obviously false name of Artan, decides to leave her beind all tied up.

Temper has a fight with a Hound and also a Shadow monster like a lamia (part woman part snake). Kiska also saw a Hound in action in her dangerous trip through the city. The Hounds are running freely now in Malaz City, killing as they go.

Edgewalker not only helped Kiska, but he also aids Temper.

I ran out of time and energy when I typed this up, but wanted to add a few words about Kiska's adventures.

One of them almost certainly involves Bridgeburners. Remember how some of them showed up earlier in Temper's storyline at Coop's? Well, Kiska is captured by a group of soldiers, and while they are never named, it is strongly hinted that they are the Bridgeburners we saw earlier. She also runs into an unnamed priest of Fener (spelling?) and I like to think that he might be the priest of Fener we run into later on in Erikson's Malazan books, though I have zero proof that he is.

Lots of people running around Malaz City that night. Shadow Hounds killing peple right and left. Bridgeburners. Khalaved and Dancer and their contingent. Surly and her contingent. Claws. Talons. Mercenaries. Independent mages like the guy in the boat and Agayla, trying to protect the city from the Riders. There are other independents running around like Temper. And there is a weird (and violent) cult that has something to do with Shadow. Throw in some Shadow monsters and some dead from Shadow, and most regular citizens are doing their best to stay quietly in their homes and hide from everything and everyone.

Edgewalker is an interesting character. I do not think we see him in any of the other books? He is somehow bound to Shadow, seems to know more of what is going on with Shadow than anyone else, and does seem to go out of his way to help innocent bystanders who get trapped in Shaow as the night goes on, but seems to have no mercy for other beings that are bound to Shadow. He looks like an Imass to Temper - though that might just mean he is aged long past the normal life span for his species and is immortal in a species not meant to be immortal.